


Somebody Stole My Gal

by TellMeNoAgain



Series: Kitten Licks: The Side Stories from the Roaring Hot AU [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Mob, F/F, F/M, Look I Said I Would Write It So I Did, M/M, Multi, POV Devilside, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Period Typical Attitudes, So much violence, Tony Stark Mob Boss, Torture, Violence, smut at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/pseuds/TellMeNoAgain
Summary: I promised people the Devilside point of view for All By Myself and this was about as Devilish as I'm able to get at this point.My beta assures me it's fine.  (I'm sure it's less violent than some of the actual darkfic tortureporn out there)Warning:  While this in SET in the Roaring Hot universe, the vantage point is from the DEVILSIDE, which means that instead of merely flirting with triggers in a delightfully scandalous way, there's actual triggering content.  Email me if you want help navigating it: tellmenoagainplease@gmail.com or slide down and throw something in the comments.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Clint Barton, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov/Pepper Potts, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Kitten Licks: The Side Stories from the Roaring Hot AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605271
Comments: 142
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Multiple readers requested this story so I am unable to gift any one of them in particular. You know who you are.
> 
> While a beta did read this, it was meant as a gift for them, so I didn't want them to work very hard and this HAS NOT been given the full scouring of their attention. Therefore, you can consider this Not Beta Read.
> 
> If you haven't read Roaring Hot, I have no idea how you found yourself here, but you should back up, go read that, and THEN come here. Or you're going to be very, very confused.

Clint’s never been so ticked in his life. It isn’t the same, in his opinion, as being full of rage. No, ticked off is something itchy, under his skin, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that he feels like he needs to swat at the sensation of irritation crawling under his skin. He’s _pissed_ and he’d be stomping if his feet weren’t, by default, taking the silent steps of a sniper and assassin stalking his target. His hands are clenched into fists and Natasha touches one, in warning, as they cross the threshold of the range. He breathes in for a five count, holds it, and breathes out for a seven count, calming his body because she’s right. Angel’s just a kid, really, and this ain’t anything to lose his head over. Harley does worse things and Clint doesn’t even bat an eye. Hell, half the time Harley does worse things and Clint’s the one egging him on.

It’s just everything’s _different_ , with Angel.

He feels like snarling, still, especially when the kid is so lost in focus on the next shot that he’s not paying any attention, and where the _hell_ is his bodyguard? The outer perimeter guys, sure, they’re always working, and Clint knows everyone relaxes in the house some, but Peter shouldn’t be alone at the range. This is too far from the house, it’s _not safe_ for him to be out here, alone. What the hell is Steve thinking? Fucking _Angelside_. 

Clint’s irritation grows with every heartbeat that Angel ignores the world around him, so focused on his practicing that he’s a complete sitting duck, until finally it bursts into action. He grabs for the arrow that Peter’s nocked on the bow, thinking viciously, _Ignore this, wiseguy_.

Peter stumbles back into Clint’s chest with a puff of air, craning his neck, his voice going high and innocent with shock as he catches sight of Clint, “Clint?”

Jesus Christ, the kid shouldn’t be alone, shouldn’t be unsupervised, look what fucking happens when you leave the innocent to their own ends. Clint growls, “Don’t you Clint me. What’s this, where the hell are your shoes?”

Peter swallows, his face lighting up with pink flame and that big brain of his clearly racing, his eyes searching Clint’s face, mouth dropping into a little frown. Clint thinks about everything Harley’s said about those lips, those sweet innocent lips, the things they can do and have done, and glowers, because the bare toes curling in the grass attempting to hide themselves are pretty damning. The kid’s gotta be stupid, after all that talk about his big brain, to risk burns. To take risks with himself like this, out here alone, and shoeless, _Christ_.

Clint shakes Peter, interrupting his obvious woolgathering to growl, “Where. The hell. Are your _shoes_?”

Peter swallows again and shakes his head, his eyes dropping to the grass under their feet. Clint barely prevents himself from dropping the kid’s shoulders and giving him a lesson in personal safety that might stick. Shoeless at the range, alone up here, and what else? What else has the kid been up to, these long weeks while Clint’s been away? Has anybody even thought to remind him about being safe, or is he just left alone to stumble into whatever danger he can find? There’s a lot of danger to be found, here, thinks Clint a little murderously, glowering at that boy. He’s gonna talk to Tony.

“Are these-?” asks Natasha’s cool voice to the right and Peter winces as she holds up his pair of boots, dropped by the first wooden beam of the range’s rough shelter. Clint’s eyes narrow at her as she raises a silent eyebrow, and they hold a whole conversation about Peter carrying the shoes up to the range and not putting them _on_. 

“Yeah, I just-” starts Peter, his face flushing from pink to red. It’s a real familiar look on him, only this time? This time it ain’t flipping any switches with Clint, making him think things- making him think things about the stuff he could show Peter, how he could corrupt the kid just a little, do things with them pouty lips.

“Just wanted to lose a toe,” grunts Clint, reminding him because obviously the kid has been left to just go wild and be stupid. “Or blister them feet again.” Peter’s gaze goes past Clint’s shoulder and then he winces, which, _good_. Clint can’t see Natasha’s face but he hopes she’s using her murder one. 

Angel stays rooted in place and maybe that’s Clint’s fault, for being so pissed- he knows Angel goes still when he’s not sure, still like a bunny. Clint’s got all kinds of ideas for directions Peter needs right now, but he boils it down to the most essential ones and growls, “Go put ‘em on. Watch where you step.”

Peter slinks over to Natasha and Clint turns to watch. Natasha does have her impassive murder face on, good. Back up is nice, right now. She drops the boots on the ground in front of her and Peter awkwardly slides into them as fast as possible, Clint notes.

“How many mornings have you been up here without shoes?” presses Clint, and his arms cross over his chest so he doesn’t reach out and grab the boy, beat some sense into him now that he doesn’t have to worry about the kid stepping on anything if he flails. Steve’s in charge of the kid, he reminds himself. Clint’ll just have to talk to Steve about it, after he gets done making a first impression on Peter and venting some of this mad. 

_How many mornings you been up here without supervision?_ he doesn’t shout at the kid, because that is not Peter’s fault. That’s a failing somewhere else, and he knows where he’s gonna start fixing that this morning, right after he addresses this.

“Just this morning,” mutters Peter, glowering sullenly.

“I’m supposed to believe that?” asks Clint scornfully, because if no one is up here with the kid, that’s the easiest unprovable lie in the world.

“Steve or Bucky usually checks on me,” Peter tells him, his head rearing back in outrage. _Yeah, no, Angel,_ thinks Clint. _You ain’t the one who gets to be outraged right now._

Peter mutters, “So I usually wear ‘em-”

Clint works through what all the kid just confessed to, somewhat relieved to hear that people are at least checking on him, but maybe even more disturbed to hear that the kid knew he’d be left alone this morning. If Angel knows that, can figure that out, then the rest of the household knows it, too. Anything that’s that easily known is a weakness somebody looking to do mischief can exploit, and Clint is gonna have more than one chat today, seems like. He just got done explaining to Calhoun’s boys about weaknesses and routines and common knowledge, it’s a little disappointing to come home and realize things have gotten dangerously lax at the heart of the Empire, too. 

It’s this damn summer heat, making everybody lazy, he muses, as he puts on his tightest voice to scold, “Are you telling me, Peter Stark, that the only reason you wear shoes up at the range, after I spent all that time explaining basic safety to you before leaving, is that Steve and Bucky are checking up on you?”

“Uh, no?” replies Peter timidly, and then shifts his weight, looking for all the world like a schoolboy caught out at some prank instead of an innocent lamb frolicking in a slaughterhouse without a care in the world- in _bare fucking feet._

Natasha shifts and Clint twitches his hand to let her know she can join in any time with the scolding, especially as he’s got images of Peter shot or maimed or scared and hurt flashing before his eyes, and his hands are aching to let out some of his anger and make an impression that’ll leave the little lamb too scared to walk around without his shepherd. 

“And you knew they would not check up on you this morning?” asks Natasha in that heavy accent of hers, disapproving and, Clint notes indignantly, a little amused. He glares at her because _this is not funny_ and her eyes slide from him to Peter and back again. He can tell, then, that she’s amused at the tableau, Clint mad as hell, arms crossed and scolding, Angel shamefaced in boots that flop around his ankles, pants held up by suspenders, bare chested, his mop of hair bowed penitently towards Clint. Yeah, it’d do something for Clint, too, watching the Angel be called on the carpet before Tasha, so he rolls his eyes at her but flashes a quick smirk because, okay, yeah, he can see the humor, here.

Peter clearly has intentions of gathering up that walloping Clint’s arm is aching to give him, because he mutters sullenly, stuttering a little, “Y-yeah, they, last night, there was a problem, the whole house was up, I’m the only one who didn’t have plans to sleep in this morning.”

“Are you pulling my leg,” growls Clint, his hands gesturing to Natasha, _are you hearing this, we leave for a couple of weeks and the whole house loosens up, we’re lucky we didn’t come home to a morgue_! Natasha raises an amused eyebrow at him. 

He glowers at her as he continues, his words to Peter clipped and aimed precisely, to keep that shamed blush on those innocent cheeks, “Are you- did you seriously take advantage of the fact that people would be sleeping in to ignore common sense? I thought you were some kind of whiz genius, the way Phil and Tony and Pepper go on about your smarts.”

Angel’s breathing goes a little ragged at that last one and Clint feels satisfaction, because that shot sunk deep, _finally_.

“It’s Harley,” sighs Natasha heavily, her lips quirking in a wry grimace as Peter shoots her a glance from under his lashes. “He spends so much time with Harley, you heard Tony, with the motorcycle races. He rubs on.”

“Rubs off,” corrects Clint, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. He’s about half-sure she mistranslated that phrase on purpose, to make him lose his anger and laugh, and it’s not working. He glares at her and she smiles back at him, which just- it just ticks him off even more, makes him want to be more vicious. “And we kept Peter, I thought, because Boss was impressed about him being a good influence on the Cat.”

Peter winces. _Good. Another hit. The rest of the house might be getting stupid in the heat, but you don’t gotta join ‘em, boy._

There’s silence, then, for a long moment. Clint glares at Natasha who doesn’t even shift under the weight of it and instead looks at Angel for a long moment before smiling at Clint. Her fingers point to the shoes on Peter’s feet, small little motions that no one else in the world would be able to read. Well, maybe Phil. _You got it, you fixed it_ , her fingers say. _Mission accomplished._

 _Yeah, like hell,_ thinks Clint back at her, because this day of work is just getting started. He’s mad about the shoes, sure, but that’s the least of what he’s mad about. 

Natasha acknowledges the work ahead of them both with an abbreviated nod and murmurs wryly, “Hello, Angel. So good to be home.”

Clint can read that message, loud and clear. Reassurance, because they _are_ home, now, and things’re gonna change, now that they are. And that’s true, that’s very true.

“Hi, Tasha,” says Peter shyly, glancing up at her, and ain’t that the picture Clint was talking about earlier? The penitent Angel looking up for forgiveness from the Widowmaker? It steals Clint’s breath away, because if he could frame a moment and hang it somewhere, to look back on in the privacy of his bed, it’d be this one. He breathes, “Oh, hell,” because she’s right, they’ll fix it, there’s no reason to take security issues out on the little Angel standing here, feeling bad and looking naughty, looking ready to make it up to ‘Tasha any way he can. 

Clint shakes himself, because that ain’t what’s happening. ‘Tasha smiles knowingly, just a jerk of one lip up, and Clint feels his jaw tighten. Now’s not the time for thinking like that, and he normally wouldn’t, but it’s been a few long weeks. He just missed the kid, that’s all. Peter startles, stepping back a pace, and that’s all on Clint, the kid being nervy. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that Angel doesn’t ever mean to be dumb. He’s just innocent, just needs them to look out for him, do a better job, and Clint’s here now, to make sure that’ll happen. He gives the kid a grin, maybe not his best work, but he’s still feeling mad enough to throttle some throats. 

Just not Angel’s throat, right now, he concedes, relaxing enough to say ruefully, “Hi, Angel. Good to see you. Been missing you.” 

Natasha grins at him, silently mocking him because _been missing you_ is, yeah, probably an understatement, and her grin only broadens when the kid barrels into him, wrapping his arms tightly around Clint. Clint vents a chuckle and wraps the kid into his arms, too, muttering, “Yeah, yeah, wiseguy, missed you, too. I was all excited not to miss another practice. I had Tasha go to bed early last night so we could light out early this morning.” He holds Peter for a moment, resting his chin on Peter’s head, savoring the innocence and trust, still floored that he’s allowed near it, allowed to touch it, before adding proudly, “Saw your grip, you got calluses now, I can tell.”

The kid starts babbling about everything they missed, and Clint has to keep pulling his mind out of the gutter, with the way the excitement makes Angel’s eyes sparkle and gleam in the morning sunlight. Clint hardly notes the responses, the teasing, the exclamations and protestations, falling back into the ease of the pitter patter of mornings with Angel with a feeling like a soft sigh of contentment. Natasha watches him with her knowing eyes and he can feel her decide that Clint’s calm enough, good enough, ready to be cut loose, when she nods and offers to get Peter his coffee. She’ll be back soon enough, Clint knows, because being alone with the kid makes him nervy, makes him aware of all the ways he ain’t ever gonna be good enough for something so pure and bright and, well, precious. He’s got a job, though, while she’s gone, and that’s helping the kid learn to protect himself. It’s one he’s been working on in bits and pieces and he ain’t anywhere near done, yet, and leaving Angel undefended, well, for the first time since they began doing tours, it wasn’t easy to settle into the sway of the railroad car that first night aboard.

Midway through the second flight of arrows, Peter grins up at him, elated by his second bullseye of the morning, and Clint has to swallow down all kinds of urges that ain’t right for the Angel. All kinds of things he’d do, if he was ever given the right to, if he was ever able to earn the right to do ‘em. He nods his agreement, that the shot had shown off growing skill, and Peter wriggles with glee, like a damn puppy. It turns his stomach a little, that he’s allowed near something so pretty and pure, and he’s grateful for Natasha’s watchful eyes, right behind them. She slips down from her perch and reminds Peter to sip the coffee, and she gives Clint a wry smile over Peter’s head, while he breathes and breathes and remembers that she’s here and she won’t let nothing happen that shouldn’t.

~~~

On the way back inside, Peter reminds Clint that there was a problem last night and he resolves to find Bucky or Harley and shake the information out of them after he gives Steve a piece of his mind about Angel being left to walk shoeless up to the range in the morning. He tells Peter about the circus, loving the way the kid lights up with enthusiastic glee, watching the sunlight dapple across his features as they walk down the tree-shaded path. He doesn’t quite understand the kid’s excitement over the bear, but he’ll be damned if he don’t make that wish come true. The walking twig owes him one, anyway, for that business with Gamora’s sister. Hell, the whole damn circus owes him -and ‘Tasha- one, for helping settle that bloodthirsty bim before she took out the whole of the big top- in the middle of a literal straw house, with the rubes packed shoulder to shoulder. What a day that would have been, if not for him and ‘Tasha. As far he’s concerned, they’ll owe him one until they return the damn favor. 

He sets his jaw as Peter flits off to go get dressed for breakfast, mind spinning over and over again with the things he needs to say, and who he needs to say ‘em to.

~~~

It turns out, he shouldn’t have worried so much, because Natasha was at the range, too, and she’s got Steve’s cards all laid out. He’s the first up in the rotation because he comes to _their_ room, seeking Clint out. Clint doesn’t get more than a grunt in edgewise as she flays the man up one way and down the other, until his back is stiff and formal and he’s looking more like a tin soldier than a real man. Clint appreciates his woman’s work, so he holds still and watches her with wide eyes as she lays into Steve quick and efficient, leaving them plenty of time to dress for breakfast downstairs. When she’s about run out of steam, she looks the Captain over, head to toe, twice, and mutters in her heavy accent, “Complacency kills, Captain.”

“I know that, ma’am,” returns Steve in a clipped voice. “About as well as you do.”

It’s a nod to their days in the war, Clint knows, tensing a little, hoping they don’t decide to skip breakfast to show off their old battle wounds, because then he will retreat and run for Bucky, he really will. But nothing comes of it- Natasha might be too hungry or just not interested in that scuffle, Clint concedes. She dismisses Steve entirely by turning her back on him and walking to their closet.

Steve nods at Clint, and turns slowly, like a man with a bleeding wound, which Clint can appreciate having been on the end of more than one of Natasha’s sharp-tongued takedowns, himself. Clint nods back, brother-to-brother, and sighs as the man lets himself out of their rooms.

“You think I am hard on him?” asks Natasha coldly, re-entering the room. “You would have said worse,” she points out.

“Nah, toots,” he sighs, enjoying her look of disgust at the endearment. “I figure he rated it, I just don’t understand what happened here. We got systems and nobody here’s stupid or lazy.”

“Nobody here is stupid or lazy,” she agrees, taking off her travel dress and tossing it over the sofa. He watches the show with much less interest than usual, for him, and she smiles playfully at him, slipping into a soft number, all swirling fabric and grace, with bold stripes. “But nobody here is perfect. They stay home, too much,” she reminds him.

He blows out a breath because him and her have had those talks before and they’re in complete agreement. They both have itchy feet, but it keeps them sharp, always looking, and it ain’t the first time they’ve come home and had to sort the stack again.

She nods, and that’s about the last word they say about the subject of this particular homecoming.

~~~

Clint catches Harley and Bucky together just before lunch, playing hooky from all the paperwork going on in the study and Pepper’s parlor by working out in the boxing room. They’re about the only two in the whole house who can be counted on to punch bags in the heat of the summer swelter, but the basement room is cool enough, Clint concedes. The cinderblock walls ring with the sounds of fists hitting bags, their grunts in eerie matched timing with each other.

“Hey,” he calls, “youse guys got a minute to talk about last night?”

“Yeah,” huffs Bucky, stopping, putting out a hand to the swaying bag before him. “Wanted to catch up with you about that, anyway.” He starts untying the gloves from his fists with his teeth, and Clint rolls his eyes.

“C’mon, Wolf, you don’t have to gnaw, I’m right here,” Clint tells the man. Bucky gives Harley a tap on the shoulder, and a nod to his bag, and Harley takes a deep breath before diving back in with a complicated pattern of combos. Bucky saunters over to Clint with a confident grin on his face, his skin glistening with the workout they’ve clearly been at for some time.

“Oh, but I know how you like knots,” teases Bucky lowly, and Clint’s lips twitch to hear it, his head ducking just a bit. Yeah, the Wolf’s got his number, sure enough. Bucky slides his glove into Clint’s hands and Clint swallows once as his fingers begin to fly, remembering- remembering rum-soaked nights and Natasha’s laughter and the burning hiss of rope against his wrists.

“Good boy,” teases Bucky, low, so Harley won’t hear, and Clint swallows, trying not to shudder. “What you been sent to find out?”

It does something, Bucky saying it like that, like of course Clint ain’t here on his own say-so, like of course he had to have Natasha send him. Clint helps tug the first glove off, tossing it to the table beside them. He keeps his eyes on the next glove raised for him as he asks the other man, softly- it’s always smart to be soft when the Wolf is in a nippy mood, he’s learned- “What went down? Peter said the house was up in the middle of the night?”

“Oh, did we wake him?” asks Bucky, his whole demeanor shifting to annoyance and concern. Clint can breathe a bit easier, but it ain’t like he had a problem with the way Bucky was toyin’ with him before. “Fuck, thought for sure we kept it quiet enough.”

“He said you were sleeping in because something happened last night,” Clint informs him, twisting Bucky’s glove in his hand to get a better angle. The knot is tight and complicated, clearly tightened by Bucky’s teeth after he’d put on Harley’s set and his other glove. It’s going to take more than a few quick tugs to undo it.

“Well, hell. I’ll let Steve know, oughta tick him off but good,” mutters Bucky blackly. Clint winces, saying quietly, “Natasha mighta covered it when she was giving him the sharp side of her tongue earlier, about leaving Peter to go up to the range and practice solo this morning.”

“Oh, shit,” breathes Bucky, watching him work the knot. “Well. They figure it out between ‘em?”

Clint can appreciate Bucky’s position, as he’s in a similar spot with those two. “Yeah, think so, didn’t see any knives pulled,” he tells the man tightly. Bucky blows out a breath and says, “Well, good, glad we don’t have to get involved then.”

“Yeah, don’t envy having to play cannon fodder just to keep ‘em from going for each other’s throat,” agrees Clint. “Seemed to me the Captain agreed with her,” he adds, just to give the man a better view of what he’ll be walking into, with his Captain.

Bucky grins, lifting Clint’s chin with his ungloved hand, making Clint pause a moment in his struggle with the knot to raise his eyes to Bucky’s. “We all agree with your lady, Clint, ‘specially when she’s on a warpath.”

Clint's cheeks tinge red, he knows it, because the things Bucky’s _seen_ , and _done_ \- yeah. He’s got Clint’s number. He missed this, too, he thinks quietly. The way the people in this family _know_ him and don’t mind that he’s- that there’s something wrong with him. Hell, Tony doesn’t even see it as something wrong, he’s downright delighted by it, by the way that Clint just _is_. Clint missed these little moments, these little reminders from people other than Natasha, that what he is, it’s got value, and worth, to some folks. Even if they’re devils, every one of ‘em.

“Glad Stevie’s in agreement. He’ll be bent on self-flagellation for a bit but he likes brooding, ‘sall the Scotch-Irish in him,” chuckles Bucky. “Thanks for the warning, though.”

Clint nods, hissing a bit as the knot slips out of his fingers again. “What the fuck were you tying, here, Wolf?” he mutters in exasperation.

“A knot the Cat would have trouble getting undone with his teeth and tongue,” chuckles Bucky, and Clint grins up at him sharply. 

“That so?” asks Clint slowly, returning back to his task with an admiring headshake. “Always a lesson with you, ain’t it?”

“Always,” agrees Bucky, lifting the glove up to knock Clint on the chin.

“So who was in it, last night?” asks Clint when he’s got his breathing back under control, his teeth a little gritted because Bucky wasn’t messing around with this knot, it’s slipping and sliding and damn tight, even for his fingers, which aren’t wet with sweat and tired from punching.

“Fella we found fishing at the Davy Jones, swearin’ up and down he didn’t know the hootch he was slinging wasn’t from our cellars. Never had anything tasted like it, though, sweet and kicked like a mule. Tony had us tracking down his suppliers, and then we brought ‘em in for questioning.”

“That so?” asks Clint shortly, tugging the line free- finally- that releases the other two loops, admiring the way the knot falls out smoothly. 

“Yeah. Mighta come kicking and hollering, some of them,” concedes Bucky with a sharp-toothed grin. “But we got ‘em all in and got what we could outta ‘em.”

“Any of ‘em thrown back to swim?” asks Clint doubtfully, helping Bucky slip his hand out of the glove, holding it for a moment just to give his hands something to do that won’t draw Harley’s attention to them.

“All of ‘em, boss has ‘em watched, finds this new source a little shady, wants to give ‘em enough line for the guy to swallow it, hook and sinker,” Bucky says, shaking out his hand, lifting the other one to trail a line down Clint’s throat, and grip there for a split second. Clint’s eyes fly to Harley but he’s working the bag, his back mostly to them, concentration fixed. 

“You home for a while now?” Bucky asks huskily. 

Clint nods, swallowing, caught by how sharp Bucky’s teeth look when he grins like that.

“Good,” declares Bucky. “Let your lady get all settled with Tony the next few days. I’ll come knocking.”

Clint nods again, fear flushing through him, the ways that he’s _not right_ and _broken_ becoming evident. Nobody should want these things, the things that they do to him. Nobody should need them.

“Go on, boy,” Bucky tells him, under the noise of Harley beginning to curse. “Got work to do.”

Clint nods again, and fades back, dropping the boxing glove to the bench beside the first one.

Bucky chuckles as Clint struggles not to walk faster, to break into a jog, struggles not to- not to flee. Fleeing the Wolf just makes him chase you, and Clint's got too much to do for that, today.

~~~

Lunch is as relaxed and comforting as breakfast. Clint sits beside Natasha and listens to her grill Tony on the profits of every single club, the barrels poured and the glasses broken, the bartenders hired and the cigarette girls fired. Tony’s been in with her all morning, getting the rundown on the supply chain for his Empire, hearing every memorized message from the Canadians and probably sending new runners to the telegraph with his replies. Clint lets the numbers and figures wash over him, taking them all in but not needing to put these pieces together. His job here is simple- he keeps up with Natasha, he keeps her safe, and he sharpshoots for the Boss if needed. Phil teases him that he joined on to the Empire for the excitement but Clint hasn’t noticed much of a difference in his work, really. It’s all finding the highest perch and glaring around until the idiots make a dumb move.

There’s always idiots willing to make a dumb move.

He follows Natasha and Tony back to the billiard’s room, his palms sweating because he knows he’s got to talk to Tony, and he knows Natasha’s setting it up so it’ll be smooth and easy, if Clint can just follow her lead and not mess it up.

Tony grabs a cue and nods for Natasha to pick her cue ball. He chose his own- gold and red, of course, it’s always gold and red with the Boss. Natasha opts for green and black, her usual. It isn’t fair if Clint plays, so he sets out the maroon object ball and settles back on a nearby stool to watch. “Three cushion?” asks Tony diffidently, like he doesn’t care, but then he gives himself away by rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet a little.

Natasha’s smile is generous as she replies, “First to ten?”

“Good,” agrees Tony, and then he grins and says, “Ladies first.”

Natasha steps up with her cue ball, placing it carefully, and eyes up the angles. She’ll go for the easy one, Clint can see from where she’s placed her cue ball. She might even get two points this round, from where she’s got herself set, he acknowledges, settling in. It’s a joy to watch her work. Boss’ll be concerned about the angles on the table, he’ll probably win there, but Natasha’s softening him up a bit before Clint steps forward and that- well, if Clint could place a bet, he’d put his life savings on Natasha taking that pot.

They talk finance some more, clubs and who’s managing them, gun sales and salesmen, whether or not the Fantastic’s latest dope should be widely distributed for cheap to build the market or tightly held, to drive up desire. It’s all just words to Clint, who doesn’t need to know any of this. He watches the sticks hit the cues, and the cues hit the object balls, and strike the walls, and keeps silent score.

Tony’s ahead by three- he’s going to take the game with just one more point, and they all know it, Natasha blew her last round- when Natasha leans over to eye up her angles and says softly, “Clint’s got a complaint, Boss.”

“Does he,” breathes Tony, his dark eyes flashing over to glance at Clint before settling again on the table. His lips twitch as he asks, “Ain’t that your job, keepin’ him satisfied?”

She smiles at Tony, bright and breathtaking, and then shifts a quarter inch to the right, which Clint thinks is ambitious but possible. He holds his breath for her reply, which she murmurs as she taps her cue hard against the green and black, sending it caroming into the maroon, hitting hard and striking against the first two walls easily, bouncing back for a lazy third, and just barely kissing the surface of Tony’s red and gold, coming to rest beside it. “Complaint’s not about my work,” she tells Tony, straightening slowly and with sultry grace, stepping back to give herself room to eye the whole table and tote up the angles.

Her eyes flicker up to Tony and back down to the table as she adds, “Not about yours, either.”

“Not yours, not mine,” muses Tony, fiddling with his cue. He’s across the table from Clint and Clint still shifts, uncomfortable, when Tony’s dark glance pierces Clint’s gaze, pinning him in place. “Whose, then?”

“Steve’s,” says Clint, as evenly as he can manage.

“Heard something about that,” admits Tony. Clint’s hands begin sweating again, itchy. “So tell me,” he directs Clint, and Clint feels so grateful he’s dizzy that there’s no singsong in the voice. Not yet, anyway.

“Angel was up shooting this morning, up at the range, shoeless,” reports Clint, breathing evenly and remembering that Natasha’s here, watching everything. She won’t let him screw up too badly, she’ll take it out of his hands if it starts to go south.

“That ain’t smart,” agrees Tony, watching Natasha stride to the other side of the table, her naked pink lips pursed.

“He was alone up there,” Clint tells Tony.

“Was he?” asks Tony. “Thought you were up there with him,” he continues, his eyes on the table narrowing. “‘S why you could be here tattling on him for not wearing shoes, right?”

“He was alone until we got up there,” Clint clarifies.

“I like my alone time,” Tony says mildly. 

Natasha leans and both men hold their breath, watching the line of her back, the slow arch, the way her lips curve as she takes the shot in a smooth motion- the green and black hits the object, two sides, and then rolls to rest.

“Shit,” swears Tony. “Thought you had it, look at that angle. Just not enough umph on it. Good choice, though, wasn’t sure how you were even gonna get out of there.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow at Clint and he swallows nervously. _Get on with it_ , okay, got it. He tries to reach for some of the righteous anger he’d felt up at the range only to find it’s fled, in the intervening hours, and left him nothing but a tangle of emotions too twisted to unravel. And he ain’t great with knots in the first place.

“You can handle yourself, if something were to come up, unexpected,” Clint praises the man, finally.

“I could,” agrees Tony, pacing along the table, his eyes narrowed. “And you’re reminding me Peter can’t.”

“Working on it, he’s better than he was,” Clint replies a little helplessly, shrugging. “Him and guns, he’s got the makings of a marksman, sure.”

“But not a murderer,” finishes Tony bluntly, bending over the table and frowning.

“Not a murderer,” agrees Clint. “Just want him safe,” he adds, as Natasha glares at him. She nods approval and he takes another deep breath, feeling his way to his next shot with the Boss. 

“Got a whole perimeter of men, servants, groundskeepers, what am I paying them for?” asks Tony mildly.

“Got a bodyguard, too. More than one,” points out Clint, licking his lips before continuing, “Got men can be spared to walk up with him, if they been told they need to.”

“You talk to Steve?” Tony questions, slipping around the other side. It’s the shot Clint would take, from that angle, it’s the game winning shot if he doesn’t put too much force into it.

“I did,” murmurs Natasha, tilting her head to one side and hopping up on the stool. It’s clear she thinks he’s won it, now that he’s found the angle she’d use.

“Bully for Steve. He limping when you were done?” chuckles Tony, turning his laughing eyes up for Natasha to gaze into them. Her smile, when it blooms, is beatific. 

“Might have been, a little,” she confesses, smug.

“Missed you, Devil woman,” Tony tells her earnestly, and he doesn’t break eye contact as he shifts his cue in a short jerk, hitting the red and gold ball with perfect force, sheering it off against the walls, once, twice, three times, before hitting the object ball and Natasha’s cue in quick succession.

“You always do,” she reminds him solemnly.

“I’ll back you,” Tony tells Clint, never moving his eyes from Natasha’s face. “Angel’s not ready to be set free outside of these walls. Any of 'em gives you any lip, you tell 'em I said that.”

Clint can feel the tension in his back flood out. “Thanks, Boss,” he says quietly, not wanting to intrude on the moment they’re having across the table.

“I won,” Tony tells Natasha with a cocky grin.

“I saw,” she replies cooly.

“Gonna tell me my prize?” Tony teases.

“Going to wear it later tonight,” she informs him. “And let you find it.”

There’s a knock at the door and Clint jumps a little, which makes Tony smirk at him as he calls, “C’mon in, we’re decent, upstanding men and women of culture and grace in here!”

It’s Doc Banner, with his bag, and Clint’s stomach turns to see it. “Uh, hi, uh, Tony,” he stammers. “Jarvis said to tell you- I’ll be in, uh, the infirmary. With, uh, Nurse Darcy, tonight.”

“Time for his check up already?” asks Tony, smirking at Natasha. Natasha’s return wicked smile makes Clint heat up three degrees and he shifts uncomfortably.

“Yeah,” mumbles Doc Banner, his hands awkward on the handle of the bag. “So, uh, see you.”

“Dinner, Pepper will want to say hi,” Tony demands.

“Y-yeah, Tony, I can do dinner,” agrees the Doc.

Inspiration strikes Clint like a lightning bolt. “About Pepper, about dinner, Boss. Angel wants to go see the circus set up,” he says slowly. “Pepper loved it last year, too. Steve could go, do the groundwork-” _do his job_ “- and I’d have Angel. Happy for Pepper.”

Natasha smiles at him, bright and beautiful, proud that he lined up and took that shot all by himself, probably. The entire Angelside at the circus, leaving the Devilside to dinner, that hasn’t happened in months, especially not on a night when the Doc is making a house call.

“I like it,” drawls Tony, picking up his cue ball and tossing it from hand to hand playfully. “But you been gone a month, you sure you don’t want a little tune up, yourself?” He smiles sharply at Clint as Clint draws a shallow breath, feeling pinned with all of them staring at him, waiting for his answer.

“Haven’t seen the circus in a year,” Clint reminds him, finally, slowly. It’s been a long time since his last check up, and his stomach clenches at the thought that Tony could insist, if he wanted, and Clint would go. Tony knows these things about him, too, knows Clint and the Doc, they get along just fine, for certain values of _fine_. For certain values of _get_ _along_. He’s seen the inside of that bag, himself, and as much as it turns his stomach, he would go, and would want it as soon as the Doc started tuning. Would want it even with Harley there. Clint’s sure the Doc wouldn’t even stutter at two check ups in one evening. Probably has enough in that bag for Harley and Clint and three others, besides.

Tony’s smile broadens in a way that makes a blush creep up Clint’s neck. “Oh, yeah, your tattooed lady, what was her name?”

“Gamora,” Clint tells Tony, although he knows Tony knows it. “She ain’t mine, though,” he reminds Tony. 

“Ain’t mine, either,” mutters Tony. “Did try for her, you’d like her,” he quips to Natasha.

Natasha looks at Clint and her lips curve again. “Yes, I believe so.”

“Tell her I’ll double it this year,” Tony tells Clint firmly. “I’ll double it and follow the rules. No hanky-panky. No touchie feelie.”

“Those aren’t her rules,” protests Clint in confusion.

“Well. Whatever rules she wants, then,” winds down Tony. He looks at the Doc, standing still with the bag in his hand, eyeing up Clint with speculation, and sighs, “Tell her tonight, Hawkeye. Can get a check-up any time.”

Clint feels air rush to his head, making him feel light-headed with relief. He risks a glance at the Doc, who does look a little disappointed. Natasha says brightly, “I wish to sit in. We will do it next week, Bruce,” and the man lights up with obscene glee. Clint eyes up the bag and shivers a little, but he’s not telling Natasha no. 

Tony chuckles. “Well, go get set up, Doc. I’ll send Clint out to let the boys know the plans. They’re in the pool by now, Clint. Almost on a schedule, these days, with this heat.”

“Tony,” starts the Doc, slowly, “You know, P-peter-” Clint’s eyes slide to Natasha’s, willing her to _say something_.

“Not yet,” chuckles Tony. “Let him settle a bit more. Just had a thorough look-see when he first got here. Let him settle.”

“Right,” agrees the Doc quickly, turning to leave.

Natasha laughs silently at Clint, shaking her head. Yeah. She probably knew that response was coming. Nobody reads Tony as good as Natasha. Well. Harley. Harley does.

“Go on, Clint,” says Tony in a bored tone of voice, taking a step towards Natasha that she imitates, laying her cue carefully on the green felt top of the table. “Go tell the boys the plan,” he adds, dipping his head a little to kiss Natasha’s neck, just once, delicately soft. 

“Scram,” adds Natasha with a smug smile at Clint. “Have fun!”

“Sure will,” Tony laughs, and Clint exits the room on the sound of her laughter going soft and breathy, careful to close the door behind him firmly.

~~~

Clint organizes things, first, gets everything ready, invites Pepper and coordinates with Happy. Last year, they’d taken four cars, men, set an outer perimeter. But last year Harley’d been chomping at the bit and Tony’d come along, hovering around Pepper. This year it’s just the two, Pepper and Peter, and three bodyguards ought to be enough, they decide. 

Happy’s the best driver they have, and Steve’s mind for a changing strategic situation is impressive. There hasn’t been a dust-up he hasn’t come out on top, yet. Clint? Clint has tactical know-how but it ain’t the same as strategy. One is a plan, the other is just a reaction. He’s real good at reacting, though.

Clint puts his guns in his holsters and reminds himself that his arrows are in the trunk of every single vehicle Tony Stark owns. Guns are his second choice, every time, but he can’t walk around anywhere with a bow strapped to him- too conspicuous, too much to draw the eye. His job here is to fade, to let others razzle and dazzle and draw the eye, and to watch for idiots.

He’s real good at spotting ‘em, he reminds himself, smiling in fond memory of all the times he’s pushed Natasha back a pace and taken aim. She makes him pay for it, later, because she’s got her own side pieces, she doesn’t _need_ anything from him but a description of where to aim. It’s worth it, though, worth the price he pays, to do his job and step in front of her. Tony always makes sure of that, after Natasha’s done stomping on him a little for her pride.

He fetches Peter from the pool, his heart feeling light at Tony trusting him with the Angel, calling, “Just got the O.K. from up top! Bucky, Boss wants you for him and ‘Tasha tonight, going to hit up Small Favors and the Brimstone.”

Bucky nods because he can do the math on that as well as Clint- Small Favors will just be a quick stop in and see, but the Brimstone’s likely to need the Widow and the Wolf to prowl a bit, make sure everyone remembers their manners. He demands, “What about Harley? He goin’ with you?”

“Ah,” says Clint, eyeing Harley for a moment. Harley looks back, and there’s a small shrug in his shoulder that means he can keep track on a calendar better than Bucky, at least. It always amazes Clint how Harley doesn’t have any shame, doesn’t seem to know he’s busted and bad, for the things he does after dark. Any of the things, really- he’s always giggling when the red paint starts to slap the walls, too. Clint hesitates, because he hates being the messenger, and there’s Angel, too, who don’t need to know anything out of the ordinary is being jawed about right now. He finally settles on announcing, “Well, Doc’s in.”

Bucky and Steve both shoot Harley glances, like they can’t help it, even after all these years, can’t help checking in on him. Harley responds about how Clint would have expected, rolling his eyes and scoffing, “Yous guys act like I don’t need my check up with him once a month, regular. It’s a good night for it, anyway. I can catch the circus tomorrow night, no need to be a looky loo, I seen ‘em set up last summer.” 

He smiles up at Clint, bright and bold, which Clint figures is fair, as Harley never does seem to be bothered by much, and says, “I don’t mind it, so I don’t see why you do.” Clint doesn’t have anything to say in response to that smile, so he gives a grunt of acknowledgement at the words meant mostly just for him.

Bucky and Steve grunt, too, and Peter’s head swings enough between all of them to show he knows something’s up. Harley’s bright smile at Clint shifts to an exasperated smirk at Peter, who shrugs back at Harley before smiling broadly, clearly letting the tension drop. Harley smiles back at him and says, “You’re such a dope. The circus is real kid’s stuff, you know that, right?”

Clint glares at Harley as Peter gets out of the pool, but Harley just keeps grinning that same grin back up at him, bright and bold and with just a hint of condescension around the edges. Harley and Clint went rounds when the Boss first brought Harley home, enough for Harley to work out where he fit in, enough for Clint to realize nothing will dent the Hellcat’s gleeful certainty that he deserves all he wants- whatever he wants. No matter what it is, no matter how wrong it is to want it. Harley’d been confused by Clint’s discomfort, and then, as in most things, he’d taken his cue from Tony and decided to be amused by it.

Clint hustles Peter into his clothes, again, and then out to the garage, where Pepper and Happy wait, switching topics to the maids’ salaries when Peter wanders into earshot, which gives Clint the tip-off that they’d been talking about the kid’s birthday, again. Always planning the bright side of things, they are. Well. Like Tony says, the Empire’s kept in balance that way. Steve jogs up and they climb into the car, Pepper pulling Clint in the back with her and Peter so that she can tease circus stories out of him and make Peter squirm with excitement.

It’s adorable. Everything about Angel is soft and sweet and adorable. Clint shifts as he tells the stories, trying to keep from touching that innocence and mussing it up any.


	2. Chapter 2

The sounds of the circus surround the car and take Clint back. This wasn’t the circus he’d been in with Barney, where he’d been twisted and messed with and he’d learned to be a devil to survive, but the one he’d been in when Natasha found him, when he’d been calm and cool, when he’d found a better balance. He’d been deciding, that night, whether he should jump off to another circus that winter, because the itch under his skin meant he’d need to get scratched, soon, and there’s no such thing as secrets in the tight spaces of the back lot, not really. All of the kinkers at The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, well, not one of them knew, and so they all walked around thinking he was this great guy, helpful and hard, exactly who you’d want by your side during set up and in a dust up, too. He’d had enough experience, by then, to know when they found out, that’d flip. Better to plan to leave than to be forced out.

Natasha had sat in the audience, her red lips shiny with gloss, and he’d picked her as his assistant for no reason other than that gloss. Every other dame wearing color wore matte, and she glossed hers, and so he picked her out of the crowd for the sparkle of her lips. She’d swayed down to the tent floor and every eye in the big top had been on her, in her black ankle-length floating dress, all frills and feathers. She looked dressed for an opera, not a sideshow.

Maybe it had been that, and not the gloss.

Or maybe it had been her eyes, heavily kohled, and how she’d been still, so still, in the audience, as they gasped with shock and shivered with anticipation during the show.

She’d arranged herself in front of the target demurely, and then, just as he had his aim and was looking through the flames on the first arrow, she’d lowered one thick eyelash in a single wink at him, and he _knew_ , somehow, that he’d been caught. 

He hadn’t struggled all that much, as she reeled him in.

She’d been sent, of course, by the Russian mob, a recruiter. She stayed out the end of the season, doing tricks with the knives he’d never seen, on and off stage, and somehow scratched every itch that popped up without anyone catching on that they were anything but two lovebirds talking sweet.

She was playing way above his league, that much was certain even from that first night, her standing up in the crowd with such poise, waiting for the men and women around her to shuffle out of her way. When the circus went south, to winter grounds, she tugged on her silk line once, and he followed her north and west, into a hotbed of crime and punishment. 

The Russians made a mistake, splitting them up, sending Clint to New York to see if he could take out Tony Stark, before the man made good on his promise to seal all of New York and most of the Eastern Seaboard to his Empire, cutting the Russians in only if they bent to his yoke. Clint had gone, and done his best, but then Phil had stepped out of the shadows and started working him over, calmer and cooler and as twisty as Natasha- twistier, in the end. He’d cut Clint free from the Russians, sealing a deal for Fury about arms and opium, and Clint had stared at him in shock as the terms were accepted.

He’d set Clint free, on his own feet, and offered him a job at Shield, guarding Fury and keeping lookout at the club most nights. Clint had taken it, let the man help him to a new kind of balance, and after learning how to walk around in his new skin, he’d started planning how to talk to Phil about Natasha, see what the man could do. It had slipped out, one night, Phil’s hands pushing him down on the bed, how he was missing the knives, missing her, had an itch that no one else could scratch, and Phil had paused in a way that made Clint’s heart pound and his mouth clench tight against any more babbling. Phil had only tilted his head and promised Clint, mildly, “I’ll look into it,” before scratching Clint’s other itches.

It had taken a couple of misfires, but eventually the Russians had sent her to New York, for another strike at Tony, who’d taken New York and was looking outward, now, looking to expand again. His reputation had grown so far and so fast, the rich playboy with deeper connections to the Families than anyone had expected. Clint saw him plenty, back in those days, sitting with Fury, plotting. He’d smiled at Clint like he could see every twist and turn under Clint’s skin and he liked ‘em. Clint didn’t shiver, not once, but Tony’s smile had always broadened just a bit, as if he had.

Natasha had come to New York to put the Butcher down like a rabid dog, and she’d come straight for Clint, knowing him to be her link, her weak point of access. Lord, he’d been weak for her, that much was true, and she might have flipped him to her agenda, if he’d been the old Clint, working solo still. But Phil knew what he was doing, letting Clint dangle out like bait for her, and he set the hook, walking in on them while the world was still dark the morning after that first night, laying down his offer from the foot of Clint’s bed.

Maybe she still would have kissed Tony the first time she met him, her eyes shocked with unexpected passion after watching him work over a gang of toughs in New Jersey. Maybe she still would have kissed Tony, instead of killed him, because love makes people do stupid things like that, and for all her love of Clint, he’s not stupid, it’s love that binds her to Tony, too, love as sharp and sudden as her standing in the circus crowd and sashaying her way down the stands towards Clint. Maybe she would have, without Phil’s offer, without his business proposal in her back pocket, giving her a way to have everything, if she wanted it. People do a lot of stupid things, in dark alleys with the Butcher. Maybe she would have kissed him anyway, and figured it out from there.

But Phil’s offer already on the table, well. It made it more likely, that’s all.

She’d kissed Tony, pressed her red hands up in his hair, spiking it up, and let him run his dripping ones down the side of her dress, leaving stains and ruining an entire paycheck’s worth of woven art. Phil had put a hand on Clint’s back, then, and leaned in, while Clint had watched them tangle together, and murmured, “Always keep my promises,” making Clint shiver. 

There was no need for Phil or Clint to give Natasha privacy, at that point, and Tony, well, the Butcher never minded an audience, went the word around town, but it wasn’t right to let the other men watch, somehow, soured it, made it nothing but a show. Phil sent them away, with the limp bodies and instructions to return with cleaning supplies, leave ‘em at the front corner of the brownstone and whistle once. Clint had been grateful Phil had left him there, to watch, heart pounding and mouth dry, palms sweaty, as Tony Stark had taken his second wife right there, and sealed her to New York and his Empire with blood and passion and the grit of a silent alley.

It had been something to see, the Butcher and the Black Widow, that first time.

Eventually, Tony had laid down, panting, letting her cushion herself on top of him, and said, “Those pretty blue eyes your bodyguard? Ain’t earning his keep, just now, didn’t see him even _try_ to guard this body once.”

“That is Hawkeye,” she’d agreed, with a proprietary smile no more evident than a hitch in her breath. “And he is earning _such_ a reward with those pretty blue eyes, just now.”

Tony had laughed, then, full-throated, and called over to Clint, “That the way it is, Hawkeye?”

Clint hadn’t shifted in his spot, because Natasha was putting on a show, and he could follow her steps just about anywhere, and certainly into this. “Yes,” he’d said clearly, his voice carrying.

“Well, shit, sugar,” Tony had teased Natasha, lifting up for another devouring kiss, “wish you’d teach my guards that trick.”

She’d looked down at him, while Clint held his breath, and then said, voice thick and heavy with her throaty accent, “Wish granted. Phil, do the deal. I do not wish to leave New York.”

“My pleasure,” Phil informed her, putting a hand on Clint’s back and muttering, “Breathe, Hawk. I told you, I keep my promises.”

They’d worked for Fury, then, another year, which at the time meant working half-time for Tony, too, the two of them building up supply chains and allies, connections, solidifying their empires. Clint had been in and out of the Mansion as it was being built more times than Phil’s apartment, it felt like, in those days. He’d spent more time looking at the back of Tony’s head than Fury’s, too, but he’d been Fury’s man, and Fury had been putting Natasha to work, building up her reputation, too.

Clint still remembers the first time he’d seen Pepper float down the stair of Stark’s country estates in a sweet and simple number, demure and perfect. He’d been cooling his heels in the entrance hall, watching Natasha cool hers waiting on Tony to send a runner for them, invite them back into the billiard’s room. Happy had been two steps behind her, but Clint doesn’t remember a thing about Happy. He remembers everything about Pepper, confident and composed, a vision, something so pretty she must have stepped out of a nice clean painting and started walking around.

He remembers his shock at her delighted smile for Tony, how she’d let that monster of a man slide his arm around her waist and bring her over to meet his associates. How he’d been speechless, watching her and Natasha shake hands, murmur polite yet eager greetings. He’d been introduced as a gun expert, he remembers that, and Tony’d told her cheerfully that they’d be up in the workshop all afternoon, but they’d come down for tea in her parlor at four, sharp. She’d smiled at Clint, eyes twinkling, and told him to have fun, promised him her favorite butter cookies, and floated off, Happy trailing behind her.

Tony had looked him up and down and he could have snorted and made some joke about Clint’s silence, his shock, Clint’s well aware of that. A lesser man might have. But Tony’d leaned in, sliding a hand around Natasha and pulling her to him sharply, and said, “Yeah, the wife has that effect on a certain kind of man. Good to know you’ll look sharp after either of my girls.”

 _Look sharp_ is the least of the things Clint will do for Tony’s wives. He’s proven that, time and time again, over the years. And so he’s not surprised to be here, at the circus again, telling old tales that seem simple and amusing from the distance of many years and learning some of Steve’s tricks with repainting a scene for a softer audience. Pepper watches him with sparkling eyes, as beautiful now as she was that first day, as serene and straightforward, and his admiration for her is an uncomplicated thing.

He still keeps himself a careful inch apart, though, even after all of the years spent living with the woman one room and two doors away, the memories they share of hot and hazy nights. Clint opens the door for her, and helps her out with a steadying hand, careful with her in the same way he’s careful with Natasha. Careful not because she needs it- she’s proven she does not- but because he has to be. She can’t fall, can’t falter, not here, not if he can help it. She squeezes his hand once in thanks, and lets it drop, bantering back and forth with Clint’s old family like she belongs to them. Like Clint, they’re completely and utterly smitten. She’s as good as Natasha at creating that effect, Clint thinks with amusement. 

Happy comes to take her arm, as they’d planned out, and that means Clint can focus on the kid, and keep his promises there, which is gratifying. It’s fun to watch Angel’s eyes light up, how he gets distracted from his damned bear by everything around him, his excitement mounting higher and higher. 

Steve checks in before slipping off to case the place and develop strategies for the patterns the men can walk when the Starks return and the midway is packed. Clint eyes up angles, too, and he knows Happy’s mind is tracing and retracing routes back to the car. Given the few hours tonight, they’ll have a couple of hours of work in the study tomorrow, and have a plan all plotted out for when Tony’s ready to take his Empire to the Big Top.

The whole circus has stopped by to say hi to Clint, it feels like, and Clint can feel himself be energized by that knowledge, that people remember him fondly here. He’d gotten out just in time, before he’d ruined anything, and he’s come back a time or two and done shows, just to keep his hand in or make Natasha’s eyes sparkle, taking nothing and letting them eat the profit. And that’s nothing to bringing Tony Stark, and all of High Society, into their coffers. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is the only circus that Lady Potts will purchase tickets for, and that means something in New York, where the Starks set the fashions and the trendy crowd and the old money follow along like ducklings.

He’s buzzing with emotion, with elation, and maybe that’s why he’s shocked so stupid when Barney steps out of the shadows. He knows in an instant, from his brother’s lazy posture, that they’re already surrounded, but he draws his gun anyway, pushes Angel behind him. It’s instinctive, to step between the two of them, because Barney is a mad dog and the things he’s done to Clint, the twists he’s left in Clint’s soul- Clint’s always going to step in between his brother and the innocent. 

He pushes Peter behind him as his heart starts to race, because he can’t believe it’s time, can’t believe it’s time already for his brother to show up and ruin everything good that Clint has. Remembering how this feels is half of the shock, too. The anger that wells up at the same rate as the fear is years old, decades old, but still fresh, still so damn fresh. How is it time already, for Barney to come back, and take everything good from Clint?

Barney chuckles and says, “You think I came alone, little brother?” and that must be the signal, because his men pop out of their shadows and attack. Groot lets a punch take him to the ground, which is only sensible, Clint decides, taking a similar one to his gut and staying upright to stay between Angel and his brother, because these men aren’t skilled and their hearts aren’t really in the fight. Groot’s a veteran of too many dust-ups not to take advantage of men who won’t kick you when you’re down- or who will only kick you if you try to get up too soon. Barney’s got the numbers, though, so Clint pushes Peter back again, away from the sloppy surge of men towards Groot, back towards where he suspects the calmest hands are. Calm is what he needs, for Peter, while he works out what to do next. Clint swears silently, mind racing, wondering if they’ve made enough noise to alert anyone, anyone who will run for Steve. Steve can organize the kinkers for a counter-offensive faster than Barney can drip dumb all over the place. Clint has all the numbers in the world, surrounding them, but not until they know something’s up, and the unfairness makes his heart beat faster. Just like Barney, to find some way to make it unfair, and rub the fact in Clint’s face. 

He’s ducking blows and thinking through whether to make a louder ruckus or to keep quiet when he spots the wild kick seconds before it connects with his hand. He releases his grip, letting the kick knock into his hand and toss the gun to one side. He notes where it lands, although he’s pretty certain he won’t be able to use that knowledge any time soon. No, this is a balancing act, now, and he needs _Natasha_ for this conversation. Natasha would know- or Phil- or Tony, how to flip these men, or talk Barney into going away like it’s his idea. Any one of them should be here, instead of Clint, who’s only going to fuck this up- he can feel it already, as sure as the bile in the back of his throat and the rage clenching his chest in a tight fist.

Barney has his cruelest smile on, and it makes Clint’s jaw clench tight to see it here, aimed anywhere near Angel, but Clint’s gotten smart, working for Tony. He maybe can’t read great, but he knows his math, and he can calculate one versus fourteen, maybe fifteen. He knows his job is to get word to the Empire, raise the Empire, and let the Empire wash that smile off his brother’s face. Clint doesn’t work solo anymore.

Barney sneers, “Gotta message, from the Kingpin. Told him you’d be here for sure, old time’s sake. You just can’t stay away, can you, little brother.”

“Fuck you,” spits Clint, bent in half, wondering if that pain in his side is anything to worry about, cradling his hand and wondering if he can hold a gun in it. He can shoot with his opposite almost as well, but he needs Steve and about seven kinkers to even up these odds before he can try for it. His mind races for words, for _good_ words, as he blurts out, “Let the kid go. This hasn’t been Kingpin’s territory in years, he don’t even got an outpost in New York any more.” 

“What, Stark’s newest kid?” scoffs Barney, which lets Clint know this wasn’t a random moment in time, Barney seizing an opportunity, and his heart clenches. Barney’s eyes glint a little, as he watches Clint’s reaction, sneering, “Nah, little brother, I know how to butter bread and eat it. You grab his arm, Charlie. You be good, kid, don’t get your brains blown.”

Clint can see Peter nod and closes his eyes, just for one second, singing Angel’s praises because if the kid is good and smart, he’ll get out of this just fine. If it’d been Harley, well- if it’d been Harley, somebody’d already be shot and they’d still be fighting. But Angel can get through this, whatever it is- it looks like a smash and grab, but it’s hard to say. Barney likes to bat his mice around and maybe that’s all this is, Barney batting them around and shaking them up, before telling Clint what Kingpin wants. Maybe.

“Sweet one, ain’t he? Not like that Hellcat you got,” chuckles Barney, and it’s terrifying that he still has that same old ability to read Clint’s brain like an open book. Terrifying and exhausting and infuriating.

“Shut up, Barney, say the damn message and scram,” grits Clint, half against his will as the anger takes over. Clint had been a part of the campaign to push Kingpin to Chicago, he knows the man plays by fat cat rules. If he’s sent Barney with a message and this crew of weekenders, it won’t be death he’s sending. Clint knows Kingpin’s hardhitters enough to know Barney’s not one of them, would never been smart enough or fast enough to hit that high level, and Kingpin doesn’t waste his men on suicide squads. Still, if Kingpin has changed his operations, sent a suicide squad, then Clint has to work the angles on the best death available. Clint’s gun is right there, within easy reach, and even with the five guns he counts pointed at him, given all the angles, he’ll still be able to take out most of ‘em, and when the first shot is fired, the rest’ll have a death warrant signed by Steve. 

Who might get here soon, depending on where he’s walking and if anyone has noticed, Clint reminds himself. Maybe Steve’ll get here, yet. Maybe the kinkers are already gathering up a mob. Who knows? Not Clint.

“Oh, ain’t saying any _words_ ,” mocks Barney, drawing Clint’s attention back by using a tone of voice Clint recognizes dimly as an imitation of their father. It barely turns his stomach, although he knows it’s meant to. Barney’s skilled in nothing except cruelty, except twisting knives into Clint, but Clint twists to new knives, now, and it shows. He bares his teeth a little, breathing rage. He wants to tell Barney he’s starting to resemble the fat drunk bastard, but now’s not the time for trading insults.

Barney smiles, clearly thinking he’s scored a hit, and clarifies loftily, “Sending a _message_. Suppliers said you did the Ohio rounds and that dame of yours slipped into a speakeasy in Indiana to have a chat.”

Barney has put on a storytelling tone, easy and light, imitating the Swordsman, now, always imitating the men who’d taught him how to make Clint twist, always pretending he’s more like them than like Clint. Always looking to place himself on that side of the hurt. _Fuck, Barney_ , thinks Clint, because his brother had plenty of time to learn new tricks at some point. Clint can’t make himself flinch anymore, the way Barney clearly wants. 

“Fuck, Barney, if she did, ain’t any of my business, probably thirsty,” growls Clint, waiting for something to break this tension, growing madder with every minute that Barney would try this here, now, on Clint’s turf and Clint’s time, and with the whole of the Empire behind Clint.

“Yeah, I always worried you wouldn’t be man enough to make a skirt behave,” sneers Barney, which only means he doesn’t know who Natasha is, what Natasha is to Clint, or he’d be sneering something else. Clint clenches his jaw as Barney continues, imitating Trick Shot’s bluster, “Neither here nor there because Indiana is the Kingpin’s, see? Not Stark’s. The whole world don’t bow down to the Big Apple, you hear me, little brother.”

“Never said it did,” grits Clint, spitting out the mouthful of blood he’s got, from the tongue slice he’d earned during the quick scuffle. He could aim it at Barney, but he knows his brother, knows how that would just make the man go slower, and what he wants now is fast, fast and stupid and full of mistakes. Kingpin sent Barney with a message, and Clint knows Kingpin. The message wasn’t death, and the start of a war. Not with this crew, not with Clint as the first casualty, it _wasn’t_. He tells Barney, hot like the man scored a hit, “Your barkeep shoulda reported it was friendly. _Bought_ a drink, had a _dance_ , good for business, a dame like her flamin’ up a joint.

“So you do make it some of your business,” notes Barney, his voice full of satisfaction. “It is some your business, what the dame does. Well, that’s nice, real swell, being _friendly_.” He turns the last word into the code it had always been between kinkers in the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, and follows it up with a direct threat, his eyes flying past Clint’s shoulder to Peter as he grins nastily and remarks, “Hey, he’s real sweet, ain’t he, what a babyface. You bringing him out, showing him the monkeys?”

Clint’s not the only one who can read that coded message, and Groot isn’t as experienced as Clint, as controlled. He makes an attempt to lash out, and receives some kicks for it, reminders that he’s outnumbered and has to stay down. One of his kickers, a weekender who clearly has no stomach for the things Barney is suggesting, says, “Wrap up the reunion, Trickshot, bound to take some heat here and the native is getting restless.”

“Trickshot,” scoffs Clint, because of course Barney would wrap himself in that name, that protection, like a cloak that means he can’t be hurt. Of course Barney would just assume the mantle, and assume it would grant him protection against what’s inside him, all the memories. He regrets the scoff immediately, the loss of control, now, when he needs to be so controlled, when he needs this to play out just right, to keep the Angel safe.

Barney’s face darkens as he whips forward and punches Clint in the gut, which isn’t a surprise, given the direct provocation, and Clint’s smart enough to bend with the blow and fold to his knees, praying that the show of weakness is enough. He’s not sure, everything is moving too fast for him and he’s not great at conversations like these, this is Natasha’s skillset, but he’s not sure it’s going to be enough.

It’s not, he finds out, as Barney steps back, shaking his head, and then instructs him, “You shut it, little brother,” lifting his chin to tell his men, “Change of plans. Kid’s real sweet, this jerk’d fight us the whole way, wiley enough to get away and know how to handle himself.”

“No,” wheezes Clint, because even though he’d prepared for that, thought it might be coming, with everything he knows about how dumb Barney is, he had been _fucking hoping_ that _just this once_ Barney wouldn’t be so fucking predictable, so interested in twisting Clint, so ready to find the maximum point of cruelty and stab at it. He lashes out at the knee of the man next to him, who falls, eyes on the gun, because that’s next. Unexpectedly, a gun shoots the ground next to him, a sharp report that brings this whole show to the attention of everyone within earshot.

Barney and two other men hiss, “Nix, dammit,” but it’s too late, Clint can do that math, too. His mind is reeling through every possible iteration of what he can do, what can be done right now, and it’s still best, even now, to hold tight, to hold still and gather the Empire, to let the Empire get Angel back. Barney knows who Peter is. He’ll hold him ransom, Clint’s as certain of that as he is that Steve’s on his way already.

“Too late,” sighs Barney, echoing Clint’s math out loud, “Gotta split now. _Dammit_ , Blinker, the whole world heard that. Put him in the dust behind us,” he tells the men, and then he nods at Charlie, the man gripping Peter’s bicep. “Leave him enough time on his clock to share the message, but don’t matter to me if you give him extra.”

“Love you, too,” wheezes Clint, because he knows the words will stick in Barney like Natasha’s knives, and then he grunts before telling Angel, gasping in between the words, “Angel, you be... smart and... good. Be right... behind you.” It’s all he can say, here, and it’ll have to be enough.

Barney and several of the men laugh as they pull Peter swiftly away, the men by Groot already giving a couple of half-hearted kicks to the boy when he moves in instinctive protest. The remaining men circle up around Clint and he shifts into a position learned from his father’s drunken rages, moaning, “Hey, you got a chance to get a better Boss, right now,” on the off chance they’ll take him up on it.

As their feet begin battering him, he thinks, a little hysterically, _yeah, didn’t think so._ He’s not Natasha or Phil or Tony, and this isn’t a dark alley. The offer wasn’t ever gonna be taken up.

~~~

Groot is groaning as the men head off, moving fast like maybe Barney won’t wait on them, and Clint is assessing the damage to his body in wonder. He knows they’re in a hurry, but he’d expected viciousness, expected them to try to get at his head, dizzy him up, expected them to aim for his hands and stomp his feet, try to keep him from coming back. There’s nothing like that, though, nothing permanent or even deadly. But then, they’re just weekenders, real goons, they’re not hatchets or triggermen. He’s got so much time left on his clock, it’s like they didn’t hear what Barney was telling them.

Or maybe they did hear, and this is their answer to Barney, he thinks.

“Well, that ain’t gonna buy them anything with the Boss,” he sighs, stretching himself cautiously. Groot is already sitting, touching his arms and stomach with careful hands, sniffling a little. “Either do the job or don’t do it, don’t half-ass a mutiny,” he mutters, while acknowledging that this little half-mutiny also plays out in the Empire’s favor.

Frankie and the rest of the Big Cat tamers arrive, breathing hard, and Frankie whistles. “Shee-it, Hawk, where’s the kid? Grappled some guys trying to get here, looked like they was trying to catch a train outta town, but your Stark wasn’t with them, thought we’d find him with you.”

“Barney’s got him, if no one else stopped ‘em, they’re long gone by now.” Long gone, most likely. Once a kinker, always a kinker, apparently- if Barney’d remembered enough to know how to place his goons so they didn’t get noticed, he’d known where to park the getaways, too. Exactly the work Steve and Happy and Clint were figuring out tonight, probably done all day as the stakes were set and the ropes hauled. 

“The kicking crew lit outta here like there were flames under their feet,” Clint tells him, sitting up carefully. “Get me to the car, send runners, get the- Get Steve, get Pepper, have ‘em meet me-”

“You’re bleeding, your mouth-” mutters Frankie. 

“I am Groot,” groans Groot, and three of the tamers break off from Clint to go support him to stand. 

“Nurse’s station, infirmary, let’s up and away,” calls an old tamer Clint doesn’t personally know. “It’s halfway to the car and you can get checked quick.”

“Who’s running?” asks Frankie, as more people arrive on the scene. 

“Send the clowns,” suggests a voice.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” says Frankie. “Go, do your midshift sweeps, you see a Stark, you send ‘em to the nurses tent. Keep eyes sharp for any lot lice you don’t know- send up a shout if you spot ‘em still on property. If we’re not there, we’ll let the nurses know where we’re going next.”

Several people shout understanding and run off, which just goes to show that Frankie runs a tight show. Barney’s long gone though, thinks Clint, because the kickers had run, like the getaway was left hot and they knew it.

Three acrobats lean down and pull Clint to his feet, supporting his weight smoothly and without pulling at any joints that might have taken damage.

“They work you over or just rough you up?” mutters Frankie. They’ve been in too many fights for the check in to need translation, and Clint appreciates that as much as he wishes Natasha was here, Natasha and her ability to ask nothing and learn everything. Clint’s bad at conversations, is all. If Natasha were here, he wouldn’t need to have this one.

“Might have something in the ribs, but I can walk,” Clint tells him tersely. Frankie nods and says, “Good, let’s get you to your cavalry.”

~~~

Steve’s face is grim, as Drax pulls the tent flap back and admits him. “How many?” he asks Clint tersely, watching Pepper wash the blood off of Clint’s chin with a sponge.

“Fourteen, total,” says Clint, and then winces as he corrects, “mighta been another lookout over my left blind spot I didn’t catch.”

“Your brother?” asks Steve, and Clint nods, looking up at him. Steve looks down, calm, so blessedly calm, and tells him, “Well, that ain’t gonna thrill the Butcher.”

“Working for Kingpin,” Clint says a little defensively.

“Didn’t say it was your fault,” Steve says firmly. Clint nods. Steve _hadn’t_ said that at all. He hadn’t needed to. Clint might not spell so good, but he can do math. 

“C’mon, Pepper,” says Steve. “We gotta move fast, now.”

“He’s hurt,” protests Pepper, glaring up at Steve. 

“Only gonna get worse, if we don’t get Angel back fast,” Clint sighs.

“He gonna-“ begins Steve in a hard voice.

Clint interrupts, “Ransom only. Angel’s smart, not a mark on him. Crew of weekenders, and Barney’s-“ he can’t say safe, so he opts for “-damn greedy. He’ll go for the ransom.”

Steve grunts and helps Clint to his feet. On the cot, Groot groans a little. Clint spares a moment to tell him, “You did good, yer a good man. Wished I’d had five of you and we’d have taken them. But the numbers being what they were, well, you were smart.”

Groot’s eyes fill with tears, looking liquid, as he mumbles, “I-I am-“

“None of that,” Clint barks, a hand slashing air. “I botched the talk-down, but this is all on Barney, and he’ll get what’s owed him. Butcher’s famous for it,” he reminds the kid.

Groot’s return expression is positively feral, and Clint nods before exiting the tent, limping behind Steve as fast as he can. Steve had said he wasn’t placing blame on Clint, but he doesn’t slow down much, the whole short walk to the car, and it’s Happy, eventually, who hooks an arm under Clint’s shoulder and takes the weight off the leg that can’t quite keep up. Pepper, beside them, presses her lips tight and says nothing.

Clint’s grateful she kept her head and didn’t offer to help, herself. He might've lost his mind and taken her up on it, and then he'd've mussed up all that purity with his poison and done Barney's job for him, he knows it. He nurses a small hope that this time, it'll be different, but he know the Butcher, has seen him with Angel. The big man'll be out for blood, and Clint can do math on whose fault this is, and it ain't coming out looking good for his continued health and happiness. Still, maybe Natasha'll argue for him, or Bucky, and buy him enough of a headstart he'll be off the Butcher's turf before he starts chasing. Clint shakes his head.   
  
Those are all thoughts for later. If- _when_ \- they get Angel back home.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s awful, leaving Pepper behind at the Mansion to pace and worry, but it’s familiar, too. This is how Tony runs the Empire, after all. Steve and Happy talk to the night crew on house duty, impressing on them the need to be snappy and sharp and not fuck around tonight. Clint sits on the bench by the side door and lets Pepper touch him anywhere she needs to, checking him over and over again, while Karen runs for Nurse Darcy to go downstairs and interrupt the Doc and Harley.

Her hands feel familiar, over all of the bruises, and he keeps flushing, remembering why.

_“Oh!” Pepper had exclaimed, as Natasha had taken her hands away from Pepper’s eyes with a happy noise. Just that. Just, “oh!”_

_“This,” murmured Natasha salaciously, her voice sounding odd, probably from tucking her chin on Pepper’s shoulder, if Clint had to guess, and what a picture that burns into his mind, “This is my gift to you, wife of my husband, to celebrate our birthday, which Clint forgot.” Clint hadn’t forgotten, he hadn’t been told that Pepper had declared she was sharing her birthday with Natasha, now, since Natasha didn’t come into the family with one established._

_“It’s very… interesting,” Pepper had said, and far from polite and disinterested, her voice had been choked thick with desire, making Clint’s skin pebble with goosebumps. He could hear every breath she took, with his eyes closed under the blindfold._

_“You see how pretty he is. You share your husband with me, yes? I share мой ястреб. We are at evens. No debt, only joy, doubled.”_

_“Naturally,” breathed Pepper. “Naturally.”_

_“Do you want-?” offered Natasha._

_“Oh, yes,” Pepper had said._

_Natasha had chuckled, her wickedest chuckle, making Clint tremble a little in his bonds._

_“Come, try him out,” Natasha had teased. “Here, I’ll show you how.”_

_“Oh,” Pepper had said, “I think- I think I can figure it out on my own.”_

_And then Pepper’s soft hand, slim and delicate, had traced along the muscles of Clint’s back with trailing fingers, making him gasp and shake._

He’s gasping now, eyes closed because he can’t force ‘em open, and shaking, as Pepper cups his chin and says, “You’re as good as I can get you, for now. When you get home- whatever time of night- you come find me, yes, Clint? Promise?”

He nods, unable to trust his voice. His damn voice, that can’t get a conversation right, can’t talk him out of trouble, can’t negotiate like any of the rest of them can. And never could. Always getting him into a worse scrape, his voice.

“Good enough,” she sighs. “Well, I’ll light the candles and keep watch. Bring them home when you can, Clint. And- and make them go easy on you. Try to sit, at least, as much as you can, or- or stay in the car, something.”

Clint snorts, but nods, unable to even peek at her. Everything hurts, everything, categorically, except his head.

There’s heavy footsteps, and a giggle, and Clint tries to sit up and look healthy, without opening his eyes. If he opens his eyes, the next part of the night will start, and he’s- he’s so damn tired, he hurts so damn much. He’s not ready for that, just yet.

“Stop that,” growls the Doc, in his worst voice. “No foolin’.”

Clint presses himself back into the chair as Pepper stands up, and he grabs for her hand, he doesn’t care how it looks, he’s too hurt to face the Doc right now, especially- especially because he knows that growling tone, deep and horrible. Especially because he’s bruised and can’t move fast and- and-

“I’ll hold ‘im,” Harley snickers, sliding forward, to touch their hands, pushing Pepper’s away, pressing Clint’s back down onto the chair arm. “Don’t you worry, Clint, you look like shit, I’ll keep the Doc busy on the ride over.”

“Look him over, once, if you can? At least the hand?” asks Steve and Clint whimpers because Steve doesn’t- he’s never- the Doc don’t belong to the Angelside when he’s like this, and it’s just Harley, right now, and Harley ain’t enough, nobody’s enough, to stop the Doc if he needs stopping.

The Doc grunts and tells Clint, “Hold still.”

Clint freezes. 

“Breathe,” orders the Doc, and there’s amusement in the grunt. Clint takes a cautious breath, and opens his eyes a crack. He needs every sense he can get, to navigate this as best he can. He can’t do math at all with wrong numbers.

Pepper has drawn back, to stand in the middle of the hallway. Steve stands beside her, his expression dark with thought, with planning, his jaw tight. Harley is on Clint’s right, and Happy shifts his weight by the door, clearly uncomfortable with the delay. The Doc crouches nearer, smelling of the foul concoction he drinks when the need hits him, the foul brew that he’s addicted to, that he cooked up years ago, that turns him into- into this thing, this monster that needs, needs-

“Settle,” the Doc tells him, and Clint tries to go limp. He remembers the early days, before the Doc had fine-tuned his tiger milk, when the Doc busted up bars and gin joints and tenement houses, raging and raging and nigh unstoppable, short of the bullet Tony wouldn’t let Clint fire. He’s better now, closer to his antidote with every new formula, almost a normal man in between the treatments. 

And his hands, covered in scars, are gentle as they lift Clint’s hand, twist it and turn it. Clint can’t tell Steve that the inspection’s useless, that the Doc’s just cataloguing what hurts and what’s damaged, making note of where he’d apply pain next. Harley knows, though, because he tilts his head to quirk a smile down at Clint. Doc’s useless, right now, his pupils dilated and his skin flushed, but Steve doesn’t know that, can’t imagine it, has never seen the Doc at work.

Harley’s movements are free and flowing, without a bandage in sight, and maybe Clint _should_ do a check up with Harley next, to see how Harley handles the Doc, because clearly, clearly they have two very different experiences, down in the basement infirmary. 

Nurse Darcy flies into the hallway and gasps, “Hey, don’t forget your bag, Doc!”

Harley holds out a hand and she passes it to him, as the Doc pulls himself back, up out of whatever thoughts he has, and smiles, slow and broad, up at Clint. “Be good,” he chides Clint. 

“He’s good,” he tells Harley, with that same grin. Harley’s eyebrows fly back up at this assessment and he smiles back at the Doc, turning Clint’s stomach. Only the Doc would consider someone _good_ until they’re dying, Clint thinks.

“Yeah, nothing’s broke too bad, Stevie,” translates Harley. “C’mon, Angel’s waiting, we gotta jet. Bye, Pepper, wait up for us, huh? We’ll send Angel home first thing.”

“Tell Tony-” begins Pepper, but then she pauses, hands twisting. _Tell Tony what?_ thinks Clint. What do you say to the Boss, at a time like this? What message do you send? “Tell Tony I miss him,” Pepper says finally, and Steve nods. Harley plucks at the Doc’s suspenders and giggles as the man heaves himself upright.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll pass it along,” Steve promises her seriously, offering Clint an arm up. Clint accepts it, watching Harley steer the Doc towards the door. He prays silently that they’ll be put in a separate car, and almost shudders in happiness to see Happy hold the door open for him on the Bentley while Doc and Harley crawl into the back of the red roadster, Harley already giggling. He half-slides, half-falls into the backseat, grateful for the quiet that descends as Happy pulls the car around the Mansion and Steve begins to build plans for what to do when they hit the Brimstone.

There’s headlights, though, sharp and unexpected, that flash from the driveway- the Boss coming home? Someone with a report? Clint stiffens as Happy rolls down his window and Steve pulls his guns. The driver begins shouting rapidly, in Italian, and Steve shoots Clint a panicked look.

“I got it,” Clint tells him, listening carefully. His hands fumble for the lever for his own window and he curses, because the men need an answer, but his swollen fingers stutter on the handle. “Ora stiamo andando a Stark,” he shouts back. “È allo Brimstone!”

To Happy he says, “They’ll follow, it’s the Families, they know where Barney’s got Angel.”

Steve says, “Ask ‘em which streets, Clint.”

Clint calls, over the loud engines, “Dov'è?”

“Luciano’s!” shouts the man in the driver’s seat, nodding wildly.

“Hell,” swears Steve as Clint thanks them and shouts for them to run up to the house and tell Pepper before heading to the Brimstone. The back door of the car opens while he’s mid-sentence, and a man jumps out, moving quickly to the backseat of the Bentley.

“I come,” he tells them, unnecessarily. “Luciano, he send my brother, Brimstone, but I come, if need.”

Clint nods at the driver, then, and the driver nods back, gliding forward toward the Mansion. Two of the house guards run up, faces solemn and serious as the red roadster revs its engine behind Happy’s car.

“Salvatore, Godfather,” says the man, as Happy pulls them out onto the road.

“He belong to Salvatore?” asks Steve.

Clint would roll his eyes if he thought he’d get away with it, but instead he translates the question for the guy. The man nods and tells Steve, “Salvatore, my Godfather, I- his ring, mio padrino. Ho baciato il suo anello.”

“Yeah, owes his allegiance to Salvatore, ‘s probably why he had to get in the car. His brother’s Luciano’s soldier.”

“Soldier, yes,” the man says, nodding. He presses a thumb to his chest, puffing it out. “Salvatore, soldier. Stark, soldier.” That’s obvious enough, Clint hopes. 

“Well, let’s pick his brain,” sighs Steve. “Oughta be able to cook up half the plan on the way to the Brimstone, with enough of a guide to the neighborhood.”

Clint was looking forward to the quiet of the ride to the club, but this’ll work, too, keep his mind from all the aches and pains weighing him down. Keep his mind from thinking what Barney might have meant with all those teasing references to Peter being sweet. Last he checked, Barney wasn’t- he wasn’t- well. Not one of those weekender mooks looked up for that kind of action, anyway. Peter was safe, most likely, or as safe as any Angel could be, outside of heaven.

~~~

  
It’s not a long drive to the Brimstone, by New York standards, and the gleaming red roadster makes sure that no one with any sense bothers them during it, especially at this time of night. The red and gold roadsters are the signature cars of the Stark family doing business, and Tony makes jokes every time he gets a parking ticket in one of the other vehicles that they brought the wrong car. Clint’s not surprised when the other driver pulls out in front of them as they hit the rougher neighborhoods, to let them ride along in the wake of the red roadster. Harley’s hanging out of the window, howling something that sounds wild and excited as they pass, and Clint shakes his head because of course- for Harley, this is a trip to Coney Island. 

When they pull up to the Brimstone, Tony, Bucky, and Tasha are already standing outside, beside their red roadster, with their own small pack of Italians close at hand. The three Starks all look up as one and watch impassively as the two cars pull up and stop in the road, bending traffic around them without a single horn honked. 

That, more than anything, impresses Clint about being a Stark. New Yorkers sure like expressing their opinions with their horns. But for Stark traffic jams, they mostly keep it to themselves.

Tony watches as the Italian and Steve climb out of the car, clearly ignoring whatever Harley is shouting at him, which only serves to make Harley shout it louder until the Doc collars him and hauls him back inside the car. Clint follows the Italian, but he doesn’t limp to Tony, he aims himself for Natasha, at Tony’s side.

She takes three swift steps, brushing past Steve without a care in the world, and pulls up short before they collide. Clint knows it’ll hurt, getting back up, but he can’t stand, not when she’s right there to lean against, so he slides to his knees on the pavement and presses his face to her stomach. 

“How bad?” she asks him sharply.

“Not,” he tells her, lifting his face up so she can read the honesty in it.

“You’re limping,” she tells him fiercely.

“Not a joint.”

“Left arm is-”

“Left hand, took a kick,” he says shortly, his eyes shifting between hers, staring up into her downturned face, looking for the sign that he failed, looking for disgust, looking for anger, for disappointment.

“You get Pepper-”

“Home,” agrees Clint. “Home and safe, riled up the bees, they’ll sting first, tonight.”

Natasha hums and then says, softly, “Barney is not your fault. He knows that. We have heard how he is working for the Kingpin, the Italians say he was throwing that name around this afternoon, looking for space to flop in the Kingpin’s old territory.”

Clint’s caught on the first and second sentences. His voice aches as he asks her, “Do _you_ know that? That Barney ain’t my fault?”

Natasha frowns at him. “You are stupid.” Her scowl deepens as they speak without words, back and forth, back and forth, guilt met by frustration, repentance met with impatience. She won’t accept his apology. She doesn’t think there’s anything he needs to apologize for. Clint takes a deep breath, wincing as it spikes the pain in his side, and nods up at her. She smiles at him, then, fond and soft.

“I am stupid,” laughs Clint easily, relieved to give up some of the guilt. He sags a little lower, as that fear leaves him with only exhaustion. 

“Did you- your head?” she continues, and it’s half a joke about his stupidity and half a real concern. God, he loves this bearcat woman. “You need your brain, you cannot let people kick it, мой ястреб.”

“Nobody kicked it,” he tells her.

“Everywhere else, yes,” she frowns, running a forceful finger across his shoulders, watching him jerk and hiss in pain.

“You two lovebirds done reuniting yet?” calls the Boss, interrupting Steve. “Need the woman for strategy.”

“We are done,” Natasha declares. Clint shakes his head, blowing out a breath as she smiles down at him. “You did well. Peter is alive.”

“Yeah, alive and stolen, by my brother,” mutters Clint, heaving himself up painfully from his knees. Natasha frowns at him and chides him by saying only, “Nebula.” Clint concedes her point with a shrug of his shoulder as they walk over to the small group to the rear of the parked red roadster. A small trickle of fear slides down his spine because Tony’s an only child, he might not understand about brothers. Natasha usually reads the Boss right, but she’s been wrong before. He joins the group at Natasha’s shoulder, right where he belongs, but doesn’t bother to pay much attention. Strategy isn’t his part of the Empire, thank God.

“Steve’s going in with Happy, Luciano’s toughs know the red rockets but won’t know the Bentley,” summarizes Tony at the end of the rapid back-and-forth session, in a clipped voice. “He’ll escort Peter home. Saw Doc throttle Harley, he’ll come in handy, him and that black bag of his. I got two truckfuls of men from this club, and the Italians say they’ll bring me five times that if I need it, which, don’t think we will. Clint?”

It’s the first question he’s been asked, the first time his presence has been acknowledged, which maybe should be insulting but Tony doesn’t need to know Barney to know how to handle this situation, not with numbers like that. “You won’t. Barney’s dumber’n’me,” Clint mutters into the silence, glowering at the curb. “He’s holding the kid for ransom, probably trying to get out of the City by railcar.”

The Italians scoff at this and Clint nods agreement. 

“I got a description of the building, and a plan for breaking in,” Tony reports, “and Steve gave me what he had worked out on the way here, fits in with mine nicely. We’re leaving in five. Anyone needs to piss or grab hootch, do it now.” 

There’s a flurry of motion then, as people scramble to prepare themselves, hissing and calling to each other as quietly as possible. It leaves a small pocket of calm, Tony and Natasha and Clint, by the bumper of the red roadster, and Clint can’t help but feel that he’s on the carpet, now.

“My eyes are up here,” Tony tells Clint bluntly. “Mind looking at ‘em?”

God. It takes effort, but Clint raises them up. Better to have it out, now, with Tony, than with the Butcher, later.

Tony’s angry dark eyes pierce the fog around Clint, making his heart beat faster, making him try to straighten up under them. Tony puts a hand out and wraps it around the back of Clint’s neck before Clint can flinch back. He knocks their foreheads together, staring savagely into Clint’s eyes. “You call your dummy brother up, tell him to kidnap Angel?”

“N-no,” stutters Clint, trying to rear back in alarm, but Tony’s grip is firm. He struggles a little, anyway, before giving in, before acknowledging that Natasha read Tony right, and sagging a little, pressing his forehead back against Tony’s.

“No, Boss,” he repeats firmly, his eyes locked on Tony’s angry dark ones.

“Then get your head in the game. I need Hawkeye, not some dumb kid trying to apologize for the family he got stuck with. Capisce?” The hand grip is firm and grounding, and allows him no room for movement until Tony releases him.

“Got it,” breathes Clint.

“You’re a little busted up,” Tony informs him bluntly, easing up, letting Clint pull back a little and take a breath, look to one side, look away from those piercing dark pools of caged rage. “And you’re mine. I don’t like that. You gonna beg me to go easy on ‘em?”

“Easy on Barney?” spits Clint in disgust. Tony grins, and there’s just a touch of the Butcher’s gleam in his eyes already. 

“Good. Then you can stay. You start feeling queasy, you let the Sarge know, he’ll pull you outside for air. Doc’s in it, tonight, and Harley’s already wound up tight, and your lady, well, she don’t like anyone wiping their feet on you but her,” Tony recites, bouncing on the balls of his feet, making the air around him electric with his contained energy.

“I know,” confesses Clint regretfully.

“Can you draw a bow with that busted hand?” asks Tony.

“Naw,” Clint admits, a little surprised Tony had noticed it at all, with everything he’s coordinating, everything he’s clearly turning over, all of the variables he’s juggling right now.

Tony hums. “Grab the arrows when we get out. We’ll make the holes for you, and you can shove ‘em in by hand.”

Clint feels a kind of fierce joy well up inside him. “Yes, Boss,” he says, feeling a feral grin slide across his face for a brief second. It’s wrong, probably really wrong, to feel anything other than sickness, at the thought of- well. At the Boss’s plan. But like most things on the Devilside of the Empire, right and wrong in church on Sunday don’t seem to apply. There’s only debts owed, and getting even.

“There’s my Hawk,” praises Tony, a sly grin sliding across his face. “We’ll teach ‘em all how we do math here on our turf, won’t we?”

“Yes, Boss,” Clint swears softly.

“Yeah,” Tony tells him, clearly pleased with Clint’s response. “You’re in my car, with Tasha. Bucky’s riding with Harley. Have Angel home by midnight, I bet.”

Clint has no idea what time it is right now but he nods. “Yes, Boss,” he agrees.

“Get in, rest up, you look like shit,” Tony orders, turning to one of the gathered Italians- not Alonzo, who’d ridden with Clint on the way here- and saying, “C'è spazio per un altro nella mia macchina, nella parte anteriore.”

The man breaks into a spate of Italian too fast and thick with a Sicilian accent for Clint to catch. He slides into the car and closes the door behind him, leaning on it, bracing himself against the spike of pain that shoots from his left side. He’s going to be so stiff tomorrow, stiff and in pain, but as long as they keep moving tonight, he should be able to get home under his own power. He’s been nursing busted ribs since he was a schoolkid. He can manage this one just fine.

After another minute, Natasha slides in from the other door, holding out a flask. “Drink up,” she orders him. “You need the fire.”

How the woman always knows exactly what Clint wants most is beyond him, but he nods and takes a long drag, feeling it light up his senses and settle his mind into the right frame. He grins at her and she grins back, and then Tony’s pounding his fist on the roof of the car and climbing in behind her, his eyes electric and exhilarated. 

Tony tilts his head at Clint, a smirk on his lips. Clint passes him the flask, their fingers touching in the exchange. Tony grins, taking a long pull, before passing it back, leaning forward over Natasha to flip open Clint’s coat and slide it into the inner pocket. He closes Clint’s coat with a careless flick of his fingers and rests his fingertips gently on the flask from the outside, tapping once. His eyes, when Clint gathers the courage to look up into them, are gleaming and dark in the night. “Gonna get you paid up, for what they done to you,” Tony promises him, and Clint swallows, because that’s not- that’s not why they’re- they’re going for _Angel_ , not for Clint.

He shakes his head, about to deny it, and Tony’s hand flies up to smack him in the head. “You’re mine,” growls Tony- no, the Butcher, Clint realizes, fear slinking down his spine directly behind a shiver. “I know some of what that flat tire did to you, back when you was just a kid. I intend to make it clear to both of you, that’s blood under the bridge, now, because you’re mine.”

Clint’s not sure what to say to those dark eyes, so he nods. Natasha murmurs, “What’s mine is yours,” and Tony turns to kiss her, deep and heavy, but his eyes when he pulls away, hand dropping from Clint’s coat, are dark and fastened on Clint. Clint’s mouth is dry and he wonders- he wonders, if _Happy_ had been driving the car, with Bucky riding shotgun, whether Tony wouldn’t have tapped on his jacket, but grabbed, and pulled. He’s not sure, as he settles back to let his aches rest a bit, and Tony slides his tongue into Natasha’s mouth again, making the Italian up front scoff in disbelief, if he’s grateful or disappointed. He doesn’t miss the days before Harley, when he’d had to dance the Butcher down before Natasha would tap in, but he remembers them, remembers the intensity and the fear, the feeling of being possessed, being ripped apart by a whirlwind. He doesn’t miss those days, but as he watches his woman and Tony clutch together, revving each other up for the business at hand, he still can’t sort out if he’s grateful or disappointed Happy’s not driving for them tonight.

It would have distracted him from his ribs, he thinks ruefully, shifting to give them just a little more room.

~~~

They’re stopped once, as they turn onto the street. Luciano himself is present, looking dapper in his flaming coat and shiny shoes. “Antonio,” he declares with enthusiasm, sticking his face in the roadster’s rear window. “If you were five more minutes, I could not hold back my men, we go in. I am glad you come.”

“And I’m glad you waited,” laughs Tony, kissing his cheeks in the warm Italian style that Clint finds so uncomfortable. He much prefers the rough hugs of the Russian syndicate to all the kissing of the Italian, but that's about the only time he prefers the _da_ over the _sì_. “Next three cars are mine, and then turn ‘em away.”

“You bring me the Bentley?” asks Luciano incredulously, head turning to look down the street. “For this, I trade you my nephew, he is my capo. He and his men, they will do the outer ring. They are waiting, outside the building. He will greet you.”

“Sounds perfect, Lucky,” Tony praises the man, and Clint would roll his eyes at the way the man glows back at Tony, except he does the same damn thing when Tony praises him.

Luciano eyes Clint, Natasha, the driver he doesn’t know, and then mutters, softly, “Questo è un quartiere tranquillo. Così tante famiglie, così tanti bambini che dormono.”

Clint looks at the buildings and can see that, can see how each one would hold a quietly sleeping family, mostly innocent. Mostly undeserving of the kind of interruption a Devilside hootenanny creates.

“Non ti preoccupare, lo terrò tranquillo,” promises Tony, and Luciano leans down, clutching at Tony’s hand in gratitude.

“Have fun,” he says heavily. “If it is my boy they steal, well. I have fun teaching them stealing is not nice.”

“Oh,” says Natasha brightly, ducking down to look at Luciano through the window with a sharp smile. Her lipstick is just a little less than perfect, a little less than freshly penciled, in sharp contrast to the mess of red stain all over Tony’s mouth. “We will.”

Clint snorts quietly enough that Luciano won’t hear him as the driver crawls their car forward, the engine almost silent as they approach the next knot of men on the street, standing silently and looking deadly. 

“You are ready?” asks the Italian in the front.

Natasha, Clint, and Tony all scoff and then smile at each other, Natasha wiping her lipstick from Tony’s mouth with his handkerchief. “We are more ready than you,” Natasha assures him wryly, as Tony opens the door and bounds from the car eagerly.

Clint’s not surprised at how quickly the Boss’s plan is put into motion, he’s surprised at how fucking dumb Barney is. Every window is open, and Clint passes the whisper that Peter’s in front of a goddamn door on the right side of the building, Bucky’s side, with a sense of disbelief. On Tony’s count, the men get ready to drop into the basement. He pushes Clint forward, to the front door to the basement where Harley is jittering with excitement. When Tony nods, Harley knocks on the door, smiling wildly at Clint. 

Clint’s stomach turns, but there’s footsteps inside, barely audible, and then the door is opening. Harley punches the fingers holding onto the door, and uses his elbow to jam first into Barney’s nose and then into Barney’s stomach, knocking Clint’s brother to the ground. Clint’s _idiot_ brother, who opened the damn door for them. Harley slams the door wide as Clint calls, “Hiya, brother,” on a whim, surveying the still-sleeping bodies and startled men at the poker table, eyes caught on the figure of Angel, his face bruised and his head lolling to one side. It would be alarming except for the way his eyes screw tightly shut when the other doors slam open in succession and the men kick in the screens, sliding down to drop on the floor of the basement. 

Bucky’s the first one to Angel, as he should be, bending close to undo the knots and ties, but Harley’s running across the room, right through the thick of the chaos, which surprises Clint not at all. They wrap Harley’s tie around Angel’s eyes, just to prevent him from peeking, as Tony pushes past Clint at the door, slipping Natasha from his arm and placing her hand on Clint’s chest absently.

No. Not Tony. The Butcher.

“Hello, boys,” sings the Butcher, and Clint feels his own blood go cold and then boiling hot, raging hot, as Natasha pats his chest once, right over the flask, before she trails the Butcher into the room. “Heard you had a message from my old pal. Checked in with him just now, he swore up and down you stuttered a bit in the delivery of it.”

There’s moans, and gasps, as several of the men are kicked or hit by the men from the Brimstone who aren’t holding their guns steady, ready to address anything that makes a play for moving.

Clint spots the one man he recognizes from Kingpin’s organization- so Kingpin sent his brother a babysitter after all- and spits, “Dumber’n rocks, to follow my brother into this hole. What was ya thinking, Charlie?”

“D-dunno,” says the man, “p-please, Hawkeye, ‘s just a job. Nobody but Barney even touched the kid. Kid, you tell ‘em. Kid?”

Angel’s silence is epitaph enough.

The Butcher’s footsteps are loud, in the quiet of the darkened space. He’s walking jauntily, strolling with a little hitch, a little skip, that matches the sing-song cadence of his voice. His bright club clothes, perfection for the show off Sheik, seem like the skin on a snake here, a warning that under this mesmerizing skin is deadly poison and concentrated malice.

Clint can’t catch what the Butcher says to Peter, but he finds himself breathing hard, wishing he could get between them. Angel shouldn’t be anywhere near the Butcher. Angel shouldn’t- even with his eyes closed, he shouldn’t be sharing the same air, shouldn’t be hearing that hypnotic voice swell with madness.

Peter licks his lips and winces, and Clint winces with him. He says something back, just as low, and the Butcher responds back.

“Punched me once, Tony,” Peter says, louder, his voice cold and collected, like he’s reporting a fly landed on him, and Clint’s impressed, he really is, because the kid’s tone is such a contrast to the Butcher’s, such a contrast to the scene that everyone here knows is about to happen. Angel’s indifference rolls through the room and he watches as Barney’s face flushes, as Harley’s hands bunch up into fists. “Tried to roll with it, don’t think it did too much.”

“Fella telling me true, it was all Barney?” croons the Butcher, one finger trailing down the side of Peter’s face again, and Clint watches as Peter shivers. He’s not the only one- Natasha takes a step towards them, even, and Bucky flinches. Harley’s hands stretch wide and then clench again, watching the Butcher stroke his baby brother’s face.

“Got some bruises on my back from boot heels, when they had me down in the truck bed, but I swear, no way to prove they did that on purpose,” says Peter louder, in that same cool tone, and there’s a muffled chorus of protestations of innocence from the men around the room, eyes wide with terror as the Butcher glances around. The men from the Brimstone make short work of the interruption, punching heads and stomachs almost like clockwork. Fuck, even the Butcher’s weekenders are better than the Kingpin’s, thinks Clint with amusement. But, well, if you have to report back to the Butcher, you probably try a little harder to please. 

Peter takes a deep breath and adds into the sudden silence, “Shorty fed me, gave me some beer.”

“Which one of you is Shorty?” demands Clint, because if anyone is gonna live to carry a message back to Kingpin, he wants to reward the one that deserves it most. A man in a red shirt shuffles his feet and all of the weekender’s eyes fly to him, as further evidence. The Stark man holding him takes a step back as Harley stalks over.

“This way,” growls Harley, slapping the Brimstone triggerman’s hands off of the red shirt and pushing Shorty back, back until his shoulders hit cinder block between two of his fellow mooks still stretched out in their sleeping postures on the floor. Harley snarls, “Up against the wall. Got us the return messenger boy, Boss?”

The Butcher nods absently, still crouched in front of Angel, still watching his own fingers on Angel’s face with an intensity that fills the silent room. When he drops his hand abruptly and stands, Bucky sways forward, protective.

The Butcher smiles, and it turns Clint’s stomach a little, because the man knows he’s center stage for tonight’s theater, knows that all eyes are watching him closely, carefully. He spins around, coat flying, and walks that same skipping pace back to the center of the room, ordering, “Clint, you sit down, now, take a rest. Let us do the work needs doing. Close the doors and the windows, boys. Don’t want to disturb any bambinos sleepin’ peacefully. Promised Lucky I’d be quiet tonight.”

Clint nods as one of the men pulls the chair Peter was just in over for him, placing it well into the room, just to one side of the clear path from the table to the door. He collapses into it as half of the rest of the men fly into motion, kicking doors closed and grabbing for the window pulls, and not one of the Kingpin’s men move a muscle, not even Barney. Clint thinks, a little horrified at the innocence, that they must imagine they’ll get time off for good behavior, but that’s not how this works. They’re not in Kingpin’s Chicago, they’re in the Butcher’s New York. Clint’s never once understood standing still and staring while the train barrels towards you. 

While the men bustle about, sealing this morgue, Natasha picks her way around bodies to Bucky, shifts him to one side with a glance toward Clint so he knows she’s moving Bucky to let Clint keep his eyes on Angel. It loosens some tightness in Clint’s chest, that she thought of it, that she knows what he needs, that in all of this, she’s still there and she hasn’t forgotten him.

“Heard you asking the kid for mercy,” sings out the Butcher, turning slowly in place, making sure he’s gathering up all of the attention there is to be had in this room, and Harley giggles. Clint’s lips peel off of his teeth in a grin at the sound of it, his adrenaline ramping up just a bit, because now, now the party will start. Butcher’s always gotta preach, first, and then, then there’s usually the confession, followed by a whole lot of penance. “But he ain’t the one you should be directing your inquiries toward, tonight. Kid’s got a bleeding heart to go with that mouth you gave him. He’d let you waltz outta here, assume tit for tat, scare for scare. But-“ Clint holds his breath along with the men as the Butcher’s voice hardens a little, never losing the familiar skin-crawling playfulness, “he ain’t my accountant. There’s promises made to him that you broke. You got greedy, boyos, greedier than Kingpin likes, and that’s your first mistake because maybe he coulda talked some and got you a gentler sentence. He ain’t interested, now, though. Doozy of a mistake to get greedier than your Boss wants you, these days. He ain’t interested in paying any of the charges you’re racking up on your accounts. So gentlemen, let me make it clear exactly what promises are stacked against you, so you can see why your chips ain’t gonna be enough to cash you out.”  
  
There’s silence, before the Butcher’s voice starts again, low and intense, as he prowls around the center of the room, restless for a moment, before standing in front of Clint and gesturing with one hand. Clint tightens his jaw and glares at Barney as the Butcher starts his list, “Clint here, he promised the kid would touch a bear tonight. You see him touch a bear? No, didn’t think so.” The Butcher’s sigh is mocking and loud, making the men’s eyes widen, their fear ever more evident as his shoes click-click-click against the floor with every step.   
  
He pauses in his circuit and points a finger at Bucky, who snarls silently back like he can’t help it, can’t help the response. “Bucky swore up and down he’d never get slapped again, after his last one. But unless I mistake it, I see two handprints on that one cheek. _And_ one of ‘em for sure was wearing rings. Least one. Notice only two of you is wearing rings today, and the kid’s only defending one of the two that’s got rings. I notice little details like that, you know.”   
  
Clint hadn’t caught that, he realizes with a shock. Usually, him and the Boss, they tie for noticing things, but it takes effort to stand, effort to sit, effort to breathe, effort to push back the pain, and he’s maybe not the best man for tonight, Clint thinks. _Shit_. After the Boss had warned him he’d need the Hawk, had forgiven him for Barney, Clint can’t afford to give less than his best. He tries to focus, but the Butcher’s giddy tone drills on, raising Clint’s adrenaline and jangling his nerves with its playfulness as the Butcher grabs Harley by one shoulder and shakes him, sharing an edged smile with the Cat. “Harley’s got some strong words said about his baby brother’s blood and how he wasn’t ever going to see it spilled again. Those’re as busted as the kid’s lip. That scratch across his cheek mighta been enough but the busted lip? Seals that coffin up tighter’n nails. And then we come to me.”   
  
The Butcher is a showman, so he drops his hand from Harley and contemplates the ceiling in silence for a heartbeat. _Get on with it,_ Clint wants to grunt, but this is the Butcher’s show, it’s always the Butcher’s show. The man draws a deep breath- Clint watches chests around the room mimic it in silence- and softly informs the gathered men, “I mighta made some promises about how he didn’t need to be scared anymore.”

There’s silence then, broken by Shorty, his eyes locked on the Butcher’s face, sweat pouring down his temples. Harley’s gun, down by his side in steady hands, flies up and cocks, but the man pushes through it, eyes wide, to tell the Butcher, “Kid wasn’t scared, sir. Couldn’t have been more proud of him if he was my own, the way he stayed mad and smart the whole time.”

There’s a chorus of eager agreement from the other men, heads nodding as frantically as the guns pressed to their temples and jaws and ears will allow.

“Thank you,” says the Butcher, after a heartbeat. He turns to glance over his shoulder, his face full of rage as he spits, “You hear that, son? All these men so eager to grind you under their heels on the ride over, real proud of how you conducted yourself while they was doin’ it.”

There’s silence then, like the silence of a midnight graveyard.

“But it ain’t any of us that you gotta worry about,” says the Butcher quietly, in a suddenly harsh voice that makes Clint aware that there’s one more player, just behind him. Clint slides to the right of the seat, to get out of the way, to keep out of the way, as much as possible, as the Butcher turns to look at the door and continues, “Not even my Windowmaker, tonight, though she is sure put out to miss Cab’s show uptown.” _Shit_ , thinks Clint, because Cab was the whole reason they’d cut the tour a week shorter than average. He’d pity the men in the room, but they earned it.

Clint feels movement behind his left shoulder and knows it’s the Doc when the Butcher’s face glows with an inner light as he announces, “Because, gentlemen, Harley just had his check up,” making Harley giggle and grin at the man in front of him, shaking a finger like the man is thinking naughty thoughts when it’s clear he’s so terrified he can’t think at all. 

The Butcher smiles at his Cat and then opens a hand to the door, inviting the Doc inside, “So the Doc’s in tonight, boys, and he’s had more’n a saucerful of that tiger milk he drinks. And he don’t _like_ it, gentlemen, when someone messes up all his hard work, and he worked some hard on Petey, getting him up to snuff for me.”   
  
The Doc nods to Harley as he passes Clint. Harley bounds over to the empty table, stepping on the bodies on the floor whenever he can. The Hellcat knocks into the table, elation making him a little clumsy- Clint knows from long experience he’ll hear giggled “oops!” all night- and pulls the chairs back roughly as the Doc paces calmly to the center of the room.

Clint’s lip pulls back from his teeth, glaring directly at Barney, as the Doc drops his bag on the end of the table. Metal bits clang together softly, muffled and indistinct, as several of the injured men moan and Barney pales. The weekender goons might not know about the Doc, Clint thinks with grim satisfaction, but Barney clearly kept up on the gossip.

“Get him out,” growls the Doc, as Harley begins to unlatch the bag, giggling with eagerness and excitement as Doc swats at him. Harley dances away for a second, his eyes alight, before squirming around to the other side of the table and reaching over to tug the bag to the center and open it again. The Doc rumbles, a low warning that makes Harley’s hands hesitate a second before he brashly continues, half-climbing on top of the table in his eagerness to pull out his favorites. 

Bucky, meantime, has snapped into action, and Clint’s grateful he’s not going to argue the change in plans, as he hauls Peter to his feet and rolls his eyes at Natasha expressively, muttering something to Peter.

“Bye, brother. Don’t wait up,” laughs Harley, pulling out a small saw in one hand and a tiny hand drill in the other and waving them jauntily in the direction of the one prisoner who’s being allowed to leave on their own two feet, tonight. Given the mood, even Shorty won’t make it out under his own steam, Clint would place money on it, if there was anyone who would take that bet. “Devil’s got some broken promises to collect payment on, tonight!”

“You said it, Hellcat,” chuckles the Butcher, stepping on a man’s hand as he wanders over to the bag, peering over the Doc’s shoulder to look inside, lips curving wickedly. He calls in a voice that sounds more like Tony than the Butcher, “Wolf, make sure the Captain has Pepper check him over. Looks a little pale yet, for someone who was fed and got some beer.”

The men on the floor begin to whimper and babble, perhaps mistaking that drop in the Butcher’s crazed cadence for a crack, a sign of weakness. Perhaps finally coming awake to the idea that they’re alone now, with no angels in sight, nothing between them and the monsters in the basement. Clint glares down at Barney, who looks up at him, finally frightened, finally, when it’s too late to do anything about the outcome. “You gave Angel beer?” he demands coldly, and Barney _flinches_. It’s too little, too late, thinks Clint.

“Angel,” scolds Harley, his eyes bright and his smile beatific, “ain’t supposed to have beer, right, Boss?”

“S-shorty-” stammers Barney.

“Let’s get one thing straight here,” interrupts the Butcher, pulling out a set of scalpels and laying them, one by one by one, in a straight and even row on the table at his elbow, “you want to be the big guy, you get put in charge, you don’t have the option of throwing other fellas under the bus. No, you face down that bus, like a man.”

Harley nods agreement. Barney’s mouth snaps shut and his eyes bug out as the Butcher continues to lay larger knives, now, and strange twisted pinchers and prodders, all in a neat, precise row. They won’t look like that after the first patient, thinks Clint, wondering why the Butcher bothers. But then again, there’s something about it, the neat, precise way he lays them down, that draws the eye, and maybe that’s why he does it.

“A man agrees to lead, he oughta be willing to speak for his men,” contemplates the Butcher, pulling off his coat and nodding for Harley to do the same. Natasha glides over to the table and slides the Doc’s dark coat from his shoulders, folding it and the Boss’s over one arm, gesturing for Harley to come with her. She drapes the coats over the back of Clint’s chair and leans down, kisses him slow and languid, whispering, “Extra padding. Sorry we forgot pillows,” in the thick voice that means slow deaths.

“Here, shove this on your left side,” Harley mutters, balling up his coat into a makeshift pillow. Clint would protest but it does help, the pressure against that side does help a bit. Harley runs a hand along Clint’s jawline and whispers, “Can’t believe they’d be dumb enough to touch you.”

Clint shakes off his hand, swallowing roughly, because he can handle about anything but kindness, right now, and Natasha swats Harley away. “Go play, Cat. Gonna sort through the men and figure out who owes us what.”

“Play with who?” asks Harley in an innocent voice, waving an arm around the room.

“Well, you can get Barney softened up,” she tells him, reasonably. “Sounds like the Boss’s mad at his character as well as his dumb ideas. He won’t mind you getting a couple of hits in before the table.”

Clint ignores Barney’s moan, ignores everything but Natasha’s eyes on him, calm and cool pools of blankness, exactly as they’d been the night the crowd had gasped and she’d stepped down from the stands in that impossible dress. “No one,” she promises Clint lowly, in a rich warm voice, “no one, touches who is mine.”

“No, ma’am,” he whispers back to her, and her lips curl up. She raises a cautious hand to trail two fingers over his lips and he kisses them to make her smile. She turns, then, and surveys the floor, and he can’t keep his eyes off of her as she goes to the first whimpering man and begins talking, low and steady. There’s pauses, as the man nods or shakes his head, and she presses two fingers to his lips just before she rises. There are tears all over his face, Clint can see that he’s already wrecked, but he glances at Clint and kisses her fingers. She nods, as if accepting a compliment, and moves to the next terrified goon.

She’s style and grace, and watching her helps Clint block out the sounds of Harley using Barney as a punching bag, two of the Brimstone gang helping keep Barney upright. The Cat’s just playing around- laughing and trying out some showy combos Bucky’s been teaching him, when the Wolf trots down the stairs and shuts the door behind him.

“Angel’s off,” Bucky announces, stalking to the table where the Doc and the Butcher are now conferring over tools and returning some to the bag. He lifts a scalpel and mutters, “Oh, can I borrow this one, Doc? Me and the Widow on the lesser evils, tonight?”

“Sloth and pride,” agrees the Butcher absentmindedly, watching the Doc pack away a pair of slim calipers. “Me and Doc’ll take wrath and greed. Don’t think we got any gluttony or lust tonight.”

“I can take envy,” giggles Harley, leaning on Barney for a moment like the man is nothing but a pillar to prop himself on. “I think I’m doing some of it, now, already,” he adds cheerfully, elbowing Barney hard. “Must be some hard, to have a brother whose pinky is worth more than any of your parts.”

“Barney said Angel was sweet,” Clint grunts, shifting a little.

“Did he,” breathes the Butcher, the muscles in his jaw jumping dangerously. “Well.” He hands the Doc a pair of needle nosed pliers. “I guess we can have you and them arrows of yours take care of the lust at the end, Cupid.”

Clint nods as Barney cranes his neck to look blearily over at him. He ignores Barney like he’s been ignoring Charlie’s pleading glances, too. They’re already dead, anyway. The next few hours are just the final spasms.

“Here is one for you, Boss,” calls Natasha, as the man beside her bursts into loud sobs. “Come, Bucky, help lift him to the table.”

Clint vaguely recognizes the face of the guy who’d kicked him in the hand, as the man is hauled away. Natasha kneels beside the next man, and Clint follows her graceful, easy motions with his tired gaze. It’s taking longer for her to grab their attention, more effort on her part, but he admires the way she doesn’t seem impatient, giving each man her full attention, even when the screams and thumps from the table become strangely rhythmic for a short section of time. 

Once she’s worked her way through and sorted out who belongs where, she’ll have the men move them, clear up the space between them. Some of the more ambitious men from the Brimstone have already begun fastening the men’s hands and feet with their belts and ties, a move Clint solidly approves of. As the Doc works, he knows the tension will build to a fever pitch and it’s easier all around if they’re secured before they can even think to try to earn a quick death by gunshot attempting flight. Bucky wanders over to perch beside Clint’s chair, his face impassive and telling a tale about boredom that Clint doesn’t believe for one minute. The Wolf’s back muscles are too tight for boredom, the way his eyes glint too steely to be anything but chained excitement.

“Saw your arrows at the top of the steps, brought ‘em down with me, want me to fetch ‘em before we start on ours?” he asks Clint in a rumbling tone.

Clint thinks about it before replying, “Yes, please.”

“Yes, sir,” teases Bucky, cocking his head just a bit, his sharp teeth flashing.

Clint smiles back at him, because any other time, that would have made him catch his breath and go still, and informs the Wolf sadly, “Can’t play none of those games, too busted up. Yes, please.”

Bucky’s black grin flickers across his face as his voice lowers to tell Clint, "You'll play the games I want, boy. Don't matter to me how busted up you say you are, remember that time- well. Not time for that now. Be right back with your arrows, Cupid. You sit tight.” Clint shudders because Bucky's right, he's absolutely right, but Clint's flat busted tired and aching, and he sure hopes tonight's one of the nights the Wolf gets carried away with his work.

A Brimstone man makes the mistake of looking over at the table instead of keeping his eyes on the man in front of him, and he promptly loses his dinner all over the floor. That’s the problem, thinks Clint disgustedly, with letting them drink. It lets their guts get all twisted up.

“Christ,” groans Harley, panting a little, stepping back from the moaning punching bag that used to be Clint’s brother. “I’m not having that stink up my nose all night. Someone- Freddie- go ask the Italians nice for a bucket or six.”

A man behind Clint carefully opens the door and slips through it, closing it tight behind him in between the screams of the man on the table.

Harley rolls his shoulder and winks at Clint as Bucky drops the arrows into Clint’s lap.

“Time to work,” sighs Bucky, shaking his head. “You sit tight, Hawk. Feel free to doze, won’t need you ‘til the end.”

Clint watches Charlie’s eyes fill with disbelief and smiles, tilting his head back. He won’t sleep- who could sleep with all the racket the crew is making?- but he can guess how terrifying it would look to anyone who happens to glance over for Clint to look like he can sleep through this scene. He sighs, because he does like to watch his lady work, and promises himself he can “wake up” and catch a few towards the end. Fourteen fellas on the floor- seven kickers between him and Groot, and seven for Peter in the truck, and Barney at the end. He’ll just have to keep count, which won’t be hard. They always scream so loud, at first, in sharp contrast to the way they can’t scream and can only beg, toward the end. It’ll be easy to count to seven, with Bucky and Natasha bound to keep pace with the Doc and Butcher, Harley always bouncing between the two pairs, slowing them down during the most exciting bits. 

He closes his eyes, as the screaming on the table starts, as Harley begins to giggle, and hears Charlie whimper as Natasha’s low voice begins to murmur. One, he counts to himself, shifting to try to find a way to draw breath that doesn’t double the pain in his side. _One_.

~~~

He must be more worn out than he thinks though, because he’s pretty sure the count was three when suddenly there’s lips on his, kissing him gently, and his eyes flutter open to Natasha’s face, spattered with blood. She smiles at him sweetly and swipes at her cheek. “Wake up, мой ястреб,” she murmurs. “The holes are ready.”

His voice is rusty and slack with sleep as he asks blearily, “Did I miss it?”

“You were tired,” she chides him, gently slipping a hand into his coat and retrieving the flask. She unscrews the cap and holds it up for him to take a sip. He does, a long pull, letting the fire burn in his mouth and down his throat. “You did not- you said they did not kick you in the head,” she says softly.

“They didn’t,” he reassures her, taking stock. “I just, guess I got tired. Been a long day.”

“Yes,” she says, as aware as he that he hadn’t gone to bed after the target practice with Peter, nor in the heat of the afternoon. “But we will be home soon. Boss is almost done with the last one, and then we will finish with Shorty, send him with the sweeps men to Chicago. The men- you will go with Bucky home, when we are done with this last one. I will stay, with Harley and the Boss. And Doc. To clean up.”

“I don’t need to be sent home-” he begins irritably, sitting up and glancing around. The Stark men who are still upright, grim and pale, have about finished their part of the clean up, letting the men who are too sick to help sit on the ground, backs to the wall, hands over their ears even though it’s quiet, now, quiet and still and peaceful. It’s a familiar sight, and one that always makes Clint strangely aware of his own oddness, that he’s not affected, has never been affected that way, by the monsters and the lessons they teach to bad men.

“You do not need to stay here,” she says softly. “Please. My heart. Let us- let us take care of you, моя раненая цыпочка.”

He winces and whines, “I’m not your chick, for chrissake, Natasha.”

She quirks a wry grin at him and says, “I am usually well aware. Please. Let us.”

“Oh, all right,” he returns irritably. “The Wolf put you up to this?”

“He did,” confirms Natasha, pulling back. “He is a monster, you know this.”

“He’ll want to take me out back to the woodshed, for letting myself get beat,” Clint mutters.

“Yes, he did say so,” Natasha tells him brightly. “I may let him, I do not like to see you in pain I did not cause, мой ястреб.”

“Yeah, yeah, Tony rubbed that in, too,” sighs Clint, stretching uncomfortably, preparing himself to stand. “Christ, I stiffened up, you couldn’t have woken me earlier?”

“Old man,” giggles Harley from the floor on the right of the chair. Clint cranes to look at him and Harley smiles back, sweat and grime and blood streaked across his face, his neck, his white shirt. His knuckles aren’t busted, this time, thanks to the calluses Bucky’s been working onto them with all their work in the boxing room.

“Doc let you help him with the surgery?” Clint asks.

Harley beams up at him brightly and says, “Two of ‘em! Boss taught me about livers. You know they got two lobes?”

“What, like ears?” asks Clint. One of the men in the far corner, as far from the table as he can get, throws up wetly in the bucket in his lap, and Harley snorts, “Yeah. Just like ears.”

“He up?” calls the Butcher, in a voice that sounds like he just woke up refreshed from a long luxurious nap. “This fella ain’t gonna take much more, time’s ticking.”

“He is ready,” pronounces Natasha. Clint’s heart starts to pound as he nods at her and stands.

“We made the holes,” Natasha murmurs, as Clint’s breathing begins to draw funny, his vision feeling sharp, his hearing underscored by a dull roar. “You only have to place the arrows, and push.”

Clint nods, mouth drying up second by second. She laughs, and takes a sip from the flask, passing it to the Butcher as they near the table. 

“Ahh, that’s the stuff,” praises the Butcher, lifting the flask up to bloody lips, appraising her with manic eyes. “Say, whadaya doin’ after this, doll?”

“You, I believe,” Natasha reminds him, leaning against his side. The Butcher laughs, and Harley giggles from behind Clint. 

Clint steps up to the foot of the table slowly, hobbled a bit by stiffened muscles and pain. 

Doc looks up from the head and whispers, by one mangled ear, “Beg.”

“Please, please,” mumbles the thing on the table. A bubble forms in the blood at the corner of the mouth, slips partway down the trickling stream to the jaw as Clint stares at it. “Please.”

“Asking nicely, now,” notes the Butcher in satisfaction. “Wasn’t asking so nicely, before,” he apologizes to Clint, gesturing with the flask. Harley giggles again.

Clint doesn’t recognize anything- the hair is matted with black and red, the face unrecognizable. It’s been hours, he realizes, looking down at all the puffiness and discoloration. _Hours._

There are holes on the chest, two of them, oozing trails of bright red blood down the neck and sides of the- the thing.

Bucky growls, “C’mon, archer. Ready, aim.”

“Fire!” shouts Harley gleefully, bumping into the Butcher’s shoulder, laughing when the Butcher punches him away.

Clint grabs the two arrows, assessing the damage. He won’t live more than an hour, like that. Time to end it. Time to show him what mercy can be, what you should do, when someone begs for mercy. When you beg your brother, he should show you some love, show you some mercy, help you out, that’s what should happen. Clint’s seen it, seen how families should work, now, enough to know, enough to know all the things Barney shouldn’t have done. All the ways Clint shouldn’t have had his soul twisted up. And so now it’s time. Time to give Barney a show, a show of what a brother should do. Time to be a real brother, _merciful_ , and kind.

He grips the arrows tightly, because now is not the time to falter, to make it worse. The angle of the holes is evident and clear- the Butcher’s work, fine and precise. It’ll be fast, if Clint does it, fast and over in a blink, straight to the heart. He takes a deep breath, and remembers all the times Barney didn’t save him, remembers all the times Barney took everything from him, ruined everything. Remembers the way he’d praised Angel as _sweet_.

It’s time.

The Doc is watching, his eyes dark and heated, and when Clint slams the arrows in with as much force as his busted hand can bear, he roars in anger or triumph or maybe just madness, maybe just complete madness, beating the table with his fists. It makes Clint flinch back, anyway, away from the arrows, his heart skittering a beat. 

Even Harley is quiet, in the echo of that roar.

“I said we’d be quiet,” the Butcher chides the monster mildly as the corpse stops its spasming and lays still, at peace, now.

The Doc breathes wetly, his face hidden.

“Let’s let ‘em clean up,” says Bucky shortly, tugging on Clint’s shoulder already, pulling him away. “C’mon, Hawkeye. Freddie, get over here, help me with him, he’s half-way to stiff and hanged, you saw him catching z’s while we was making ‘em dance.”

The Butcher protests loudly, frowning at Bucky, “Hey now, who said we was done, here?” and Clint’s blood runs cold, even though it’s always like this, at the end. Bucky drops his hand like Clint’s hot iron, holding stiff and still, awaiting the next order.

“Nobody,” purrs Natasha, sliding a hand up the Boss’s chest from under his arm, resting her chin on his shoulder from behind. Clint won’t ever get over the way she and Harley touch the Butcher, in moments like these. He can’t decide if it’s courage or capacity, or some weakness in them, drawn to touch the most fearful thing in the room. “We do not have to be done at all, if you do not want to be.”

“Step right up,” laughs the Butcher, spinning to place his hands behind her back. Clint hates it, hates the suggestion that the Butcher thinks about taking apart his crew the same as his rival’s, but she smiles up at the monster like it’s all a laugh and purses her lips, tilting her head for his kiss.

“Oh, dame, you make me dizzy,” whispers the Butcher, leaning close, his quiet voice somehow loud and echoing in this room that is filled with silent corpses and a double dozen men struggling under the weight of the memories they’ll carry back to the Brimstone, “but I ain’t done with it, can feel it, itching under my skin.”

Natasha pulls back, unkissed, considering him. After a long look, she nods, murmuring, “Well, there is always Shorty.” Clint is grateful there’s still someone who’s guilty to offer up, because there’s men here, men who she could pick, could point out. Mooks who weren’t strong enough or tough enough. The Butcher would follow her lead onto that dance floor, as well, he’s done it in the past, in so many back alleys and basements and boarded up safehouses.

There’s a reason a Stark-made man provides excellent service, even if he only works weekends.

“Hellcat roughed him up,” says Bucky shortly. He tries to keep his voice even, but if Clint can read the tension in his shoulders, the Butcher can read it in his voice. “We ran out of lesser evils while you were working, Cat got bored.”

“Could send one of our boys as messenger,” suggests Natasha, her eyes wide and innocent as she looks up at the Butcher, coaxes him. “Shorty can stay here.”

Clint opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t know what, but someone should say something, when Harley reaches out and pushes her, hard, away from the Butcher. She lets him, anyone who knows her knows she’s letting him push her, as he snaps, “Ain’t right! Man took care of Angel- oughta get a reward. And not the last one, neither! You shut your head, Widow.”

It’s absolutely no surprise when the Butcher’s fist lands in Harley’s gut, bending the man in half. Nor is it a surprise when the Butcher grabs a handful of hair and yanks Harley’s head back, throat bared. The kick to sweep Harley’s legs out from under him is fairly predictable, too, Clint allows. He’s seen this dance- the challenge, the take-down, enough times to know Bucky should relax, should let Harley do what Harley’s going to do, now. Should let them get on with it. But then, Boss didn’t put him in charge of keeping Harley safe, the same way he put Bucky in charge of it. Harley’s blood and bruises aren’t on Clint’s head. 

“You volunteering, Cat?” snarls the Butcher, when Harley gains control of his gasping and tremors.

Harley giggles up at him, that same half-mad sound that he always lets leak when the Boss gets rough with him, and chuckles, “Always, Boss. Always volunteering.”

Natasha hums and puts one hand on the Doc’s back, rubbing gently. “Doc,” she teases in a low voice, “you are missing the show.” She looks over at Bucky, and then at Clint, and says, “You are not needed, here. Got what we needed out of you. Go home.”

The Butcher is staring down at Harley, who is grinning up at him, cocky and confident. 

Clint’s been on his knees for the Butcher, back before Harley, so he knows, he knows he never smiled. His hands start to tremble as Bucky turns back to him, pushes on his shoulder, and tells him, “Time’s up, lady wants us out. C’mon, Hawk.”

Natasha announces, “Everybody scram. We will get the last of the mop up. Two to a tarp, you oughta be able to get them all up and out in one go.”

“Good work,” grunts the Butcher. “Be by next week with a bonus.”

Bucky pushes Clint forward, as the men burst into motion, eager to leave, eager to go wash their hands, their faces, take off their suits and scrub clean. Eager to grab a drink or six and watch the sun rise. Tony will own them now, Clint knows, because they stood by and did nothing, and that sinks like hooks into a good man’s flesh, the guilt and the doubt, the loyalty because they were there, they _helped_. Brimstone won’t be a problem any more, a thorn in Natasha’s side, full of men who keep getting bigger than their britches, who try to throw their weight around, who grumble. Brimstone men will remember Harley spoke for them, and Tony listened, and that Natasha noticed their weakness as well as the ways they failed.

The Butcher may be single-minded, but Tony balances everything, even the Butcher’s bloodlust, towards the profit of the Empire.

Clint doesn’t realize until he’s in the back of the car, Bucky up front driving, that he never has to worry about Barney showing up and ruining everything ever again. His hands are trembling as he raises them to wipe his face, shaking with the revolving emotions spinning inside him- gratitude, shame, relief, anger, still that low thrum of anger, that Barney would try, would try again, to ruin everything of Clint’s- every chance, every opportunity, every happiness, every moment of balance.

Bucky looks up in the mirror and says, “I hear Pepper’s waiting up for you,” and Clint grunts. “Maybe should wipe your face off, your hands,” suggests Bucky. “Boss wouldn’t like her coming away streaked with your idiot brother’s blood.”

Clint nods, and sighs, and grabs for his handkerchief, putting one corner inside his mouth to wet it. He stares at the blood on his hands- so little blood, really, just along the outer edge- for a long moment before sighing again, shifting a little as the deep breath makes his aching ribs flare with pain, and gets to work, cleaning up for the first of the angels he’ll need to face, in this new day.


	4. Chapter 4

He must have fallen asleep again, although it’s not a long drive, because Bucky wakes him up by popping the door beside him and muttering, “Hey, Hawk, don’t you fall.” Clint groans and pulls himself up, flinching from the pain in his side.

“Jeez, Bucky,” says Happy’s voice, “what, did you make him do all the work? He looks like crap.”

“Hap, I swear on my soul he slept through most of it,” Bucky protests.

“Just stiff,” Clint tells Happy shortly, glaring up at him. 

“Yeah, wiseguy,” mutters Happy. He adds, quieter still, elbowing Bucky out of the way to help Clint from the car, “You get what you need?”

“Some,” admits Clint through gritted teeth. “And some I didn’t need.” Bucky snort his agreement, shaking his head.

“Well, prepare yourself, you’re the fourth of Pepper’s chicks to come home and she’s already roosting,” warns Happy, as he hauls Clint up and out.

“Just don’t let her sit on me,” Clint tells him tightly, leaning back against the roadster for support, gathering himself for the walk to the house, “and I’ll survive it.”

Happy grins at him and says, “But will you make it through the next couple of weeks the way everybody’ll be hovering?”

“They’ll be half-hovering over Angel,” protests Clint weakly.

“And half over you, wiseguy,” Happy teases. “Anybody check your ribs yet?”

“Rib’s’re fine,” huffs Clint, pushing off of the car and stomping- trying to stomp- to the house.

“You can lie to me, but not to her,” reminds Happy, as Bucky chuckles.

Clint shrugs, scowling, but suddenly there’s a silhouette on the wall inside the house, just visible from the glass in the door, and he can already feel the croak in his throat building.

“Clint,” calls Pepper as the silhouette becomes her face, in her warmest fond tone, welcoming him home, drawing him inside with an eager hand.

“Taking the car, be right up to help,” calls Bucky.

Happy snorts, “ _I’ll_ take the car, _you_ go right up and help. Wiseguy needs _you_ , right now, and that fear-a-God you put in him.”

Clint rolls his eyes as Pepper’s eyes lighten with laughter. Bucky tosses his keys to Happy and without a word, swoops Clint into his arms. “Hurts,” Clint complains, when he gets air back, but they’re already at the back stairs.

“Just a minute,” Pepper murmurs. “He’ll only carry you for just a minute, Clint. Do let him.”

Bucky says nothing, and Clint decides to let that be his cue, too.

They don’t take him to Natasha’s suite, which is probably smart, but through Pepper’s into Natasha’s bathroom. Bucky sets him on the fancy dark black cushioned chair, and begins pulling his clothes from him as Pepper draws the bath.

“You’ll be in with me,” she tells Clint firmly. He begins to protest and she raises a hand, cutting him off silently. “Tony will need Natasha, when they get home, and who knows how long that will be, and then he’ll go in with Peter, Steve’s sure of it.” Bucky nods confirmation, sliding Clint’s arms out of his shirt, hissing a little at what Clint is sure is an impressive array of bruising, even this short of a time from the original kicking. “That leaves Harley with Steve and Bucky, thank you, Sergeant,” Bucky nods genially, sliding Clint’s undershirt up and hissing again as Clint mutters against the pain. “And you know Happy will be flustered if we put you in with him, after last time.”

Clint nods reluctant agreement. Bucky smiles at him and says, “And it ain’t like it’s a hardship, sleeping in Pepper’s wide soft bed, right, boy?”

Clint shakes his head, because no, it never is. He’s just never- never been offered it alone. Never been offered all that sweet softness alone. He’s not sure he can face it, especially tonight, without Natasha there, to tell him it’s okay to lie in it.

“We’ll tell Natasha to join us, when she is done with Tony,” offers Pepper with a small smile.

Clint nods, because that’s- that’s better. They slide him into a bath, careful to help him and not hinder him. It’s quick, and gentle, Bucky’s hands and Pepper’s working together to get him clean, to catalog where the worst of the pain is, soft, soft and gentle.

“You’re going to need actual pajamas,” mutters Bucky. “Mine or Steve’s?”

Clint could blush at the thought of him in a nightshirt in bed with Pepper. “Yours?” he asks, gratefully.

Bucky’s eyes shift into a twinkle, just a bit, just a bit of the playful Wolf still there, as he teases, “Half a mind to grab Steve’s, make you squirm a bit, boy. Let Pepper enjoy some easy access, if she needs it.”

“Stop,” laughs Pepper, “Sergeant, you are the worst- you know he is in no condition-”

“Oh, ain’t about his _condition_ ,” chuckles Bucky, shaking his head, “seen him give it up for ‘Tasha in worse _condition_ than this, time or two before.”

Clint swallows, knowing his face is lit up, remembering those nights, too. He shoots Bucky a dark glare and the man backs away, hands lifted, laughing, “All right, all right, outvoted. I’ll go get ‘em.”

“Better yet, second drawer, on the right,” says Pepper quietly, helping Clint out of the bath with careful motions. “If Tony should happen in-”

“Oh, perfect,” purrs Bucky, eyes alight. “Yeah, that’ll settle well with the Boss and ‘Tasha, both.”

“I am wrapping these ribs, after liniment,” announces Pepper, as her fast fingers begin to rub in the foul-smelling stuff. Clint shifts, but he knows how well it’ll work, first to light fire and then to burn lowly, smothering the lesser aches and pains in its wake and soothing down the spikes of pain. “I do believe you’ve cracked one.”

“I didn’t do any cracking,” objects Clint, turning with her soft touch, letting her fingers smooth and dip, slide and glide across his aches and pains. “I tried to avoid any cracking. Was a lucky kick, right at the start.”

Pepper hums disapproval of this, as Bucky returns fairly quickly with a bright red pair of pajamas, the Stark crest embroidered over the breast pocket. “Oh, please,” murmurs Clint faintly, staring in horror, “not those.”

“Oh, perfect,” giggles the always sophisticated Lady Stark, and normally Clint would do about anything to hear it, it’s so unlike her to giggle, but, yeesh, not _those_ pajamas. She grins at him as she adds, “They’re the softest ones, you know.”

Bucky grins at him, wolfishly- how else, and says, clearly pleased with himself, “Left foot up, c’mon, boy, you earned ‘em, tonight.”

“Oh-” Clint bites off the word _God_ just in time, with a quick glance at Pepper as she turns away. Bucky catches it, and holds up a finger after sliding the pants up to Clint’s hips. Clint challenges, “You can’t- I didn’t say it!”

“Thought it,” argues Bucky, his face mockingly stern. “Saw you thinking it, boy."

Clint flushes and mutters, “I’m telling ‘Tasha. She’ll set the score straight. It don’t count if I don’t say it.”

“Clinton Francis Barton,” interrupts Pepper severely, as she slides the shirt on his arms with quick motions, careful with his left side. “I have already had to swat one of the Stark men tonight because you are all intent on testing my patience. I have no idea why you all- every one of you- the _minute_ you are injured- you cannot keep the Lord’s name-”

Bucky starts to chuckle as Clint puts up his hands and tells her, with maybe more force than necessary, “I _didn’t_ say it, though, ma’am, I didn’t! And I didn’t stop because’a Bucky, I stopped myself!”

“Well, then, Bucky, you can’t count that one,” she says, confused, as she begins buttoning. 

“Boy got himself busted up, I can count as much as I want,” the Wolf informs her in a low growl.

There’s a slight pause, while Clint looks at neither one of them, swallowing, because these small confirmations that he belongs, that people worry- the threats from Bucky, Pepper pressing Tony’s loudest pajamas on him- rub like sandpaper across his heart, abrading where he’s hurting, already.

“That, I believe, is between the two of you,” she says finally, with confidence. “And Natasha, of course.”

Of course. Like everything in life worth having, it all comes back to Natasha. Clint sighs, looking up at Bucky to say firmly, “Not tonight, though. I can’t- I can’t play that way tonight, Buck.”

“I know it,” returns Bucky, his eyes narrowing. “Want to get a closer look at those ribs before tucking you both in. Look nasty.”

Clint nods. His ribs _feel_ nasty, too.

“I have a tray,” Pepper tells them both. “You’ll both nibble, and Clint, I have aspirin set aside already. Should ease you a bit.”

“Not as much as morphine, got any of that?” asks Bucky, only half-teasing. They all three know there is morphine, for Clint, if he needs it. There’s morphine and worse, if he needs it.

Clint shakes his head, “‘d rather not have those dreams, thanks, Bucky.”

Bucky snorts but nods agreement, pulling Clint upright and guiding him back to the bed with strong, sure hands. He flips back the covers to the Boss’s side of the bed and says, “Scramble in, she’s washing her face. I saw the tray, I’ll bring it by.”

Pepper comes from the other bathroom with a soft smile on her face and reports, “I peeked in, they’re out, both of them, Bucky, sweet as can be.”

“Kid’s had a rough day,” grunts Bucky, and with a short, intense look at Clint, he adds, “Don’t think Steve’s had an easier one. Started with a tongue-lashing from Natasha about dereliction of security and then, well- a demonstration of it.”

Clint winces. “There- that wasn’t-”

“It was, some,” counters Bucky. “We do- have been- more lax, it being summer. And we haven’t been on a warpath in over a year. Makes us lazy, complacent.”

“Everyone deserves some rest,” interjects Pepper firmly. “This was an isolated incident, easily handled, and not widely noted. Here, Bucky, pull over that chair, and Clint, I’ll sit beside you, and we’ll have a good nibble.”

It is a good nibble, thinks Clint, his thoughts going bleary again. There’s maple sugar and oatmeal, his favorite, and cheese and sausage for Bucky, with little salted crackers that he snaps up, flashing bright eyes at Pepper as he stuffs the marzipan in his mouth in between bites. Pepper picks away at the fruit, nibbling on Missouri apples and Michigan blueberries. She could probably name the farms they’re sourced from, thinks Clint in hazy admiration. She’s that- she’s that good. She keeps everything going, keeps candles in the window and everything.

“I think we’re losing him,” chuckles Bucky, rising up and lifting the tray off of Clint’s lap. Clint’s eyes snap open and he mumbles, “No, no, eat, I’m fine, ‘m fine, really.”

“We’re full,” declares Pepper. “Here, let’s get those ribs wrapped and you ready for a deeper sleep, young man.”

Clint would protest but his ribs do hurt and if Bucky wraps them, they’ll hurt less, he knows that, too. Bucky’s hands are gentle and firm, guiding Clint up out of the pillows and into a stable sitting position before lifting the pajamas. Pepper holds them up for Clint as Bucky hisses and begins wrapping, steady and sure with the motions. 

“‘S not even the first time I’ve ever wrapped this particular set of cracks of yours, boy,” grunts Bucky, clearly caught in the same line of thought as Clint, a small smile on his lips. “Gotta learn to duck out faster.”

“Always end up in the dirt anyway,” grumbles Clint, glaring down, thinking of how he can’t _talk_ , not the way everyone else can. Even Harley can talk his way out of trouble, half the time. But not Clint, never Clint. He’s always ended up in the dirt, getting his ribs cracked. Always- always- Barney never- never _once-_

“Hey, hey, now,” whispers Bucky, as Pepper says, “Shhh, shhh, love,” and reaches for Clint’s shoulders, wrapping herself gently around them like a blanket on his back.

Bucky finishes tucking in the wrapping over Clint’s heaving chest and places a hand on Clint’s sternum, saying lowly, “I don’t know, but I can guess, Clint. I got family, I can _guess_.”

Clint shakes his head, because it’s not like that, he’s heard about Bucky’s family, their loud fights and their hard love, the way they send him birthday cards and expect him to visit once a month so they can yell at him for all the things they think he’s doing wrong with his life. Bucky doesn’t have a family like Clint’s, is all. Hell, only Harley could understand it, maybe, dimly, if Harley’s sister had grown up at all, had grown up and turned out to be a monster, maybe, instead of- well. So even Harley _can’t_ understand it.

It’s a _relief_. And it’s so good it was him, his arrows, he knows it’s evil, but he’s so glad it was him. Barney deserved it, the way the Boss said, for everything he’d ever done to Clint when Clint was just a kid, for everything he let other people do to Clint, too. He deserved the fear and the pain, ninefold, back on him, but still.

But still.

If Clint had just had better words, ever, at any time in his life, at any point, maybe-

“Ain’t your fault,” mutters Bucky, wiping the tears away with careful hands, cupping Clint’s chin carefully. Clint shakes his head, so stupid tired he can’t even- he huffs a laugh- can’t even think of a response.

“It isn’t,” says Pepper, her voice so smooth and neat, soothing. “Whatever- whatever happened tonight, you didn’t write to your brother and ask for Barney to steal Peter, I’m certain of it.”

It’s such an echo of Tony’s _you call your dummy brother up, tell him to kidnap Angel?_ that it almost steals Clint’s breath away. 

“And he’s needed to pay for other crimes, hasn’t he, boy?” asks Bucky quietly, crouching down so that his face is where Clint’s glaring, through the tears. 

Clint knows that Harley worships Tony but loves this man, would follow Bucky anywhere like a trusting little lamb, and he thinks, looking into Bucky’s eyes in that moment, that he understands why. Bucky nods, and looks up at him, and says simply, “And now he has. Now he’s paid for ‘em. Should have paid long ago, before he got around to wrecking that little home you had.”

Clint takes a deep breath, fast and sharp, and Bucky nods. “You talk, sometimes,” he tells Clint, almost gently. “When you’re out of it. You say things. Laura. Beautiful Laura. All them kids you two never had. Don’t know what all he did, don’t need to, but Clint, he paid tonight. For all of it. For every scar you don’t talk about, all the things-” there’s a pause, because Pepper’s there, but Bucky’s eyes flicker and Clint can list the things Bucky _knows_ about the way’s Clint’s been twisted without any words being said, in the length of the pause- “all the things you can’t say, he’s paid. It ain’t gonna make it right, but Clint-” there’s another pause, and Clint looks up into the darkest, most compassionate expression he’s ever seen on Bucky’s face, and the man has such a depth of empathy right when you need it most, he really does- “Clint, you can sleep tonight. You can sleep, and know he ain’t in any corners, waiting to jump out at you, waiting to give you up to others.” That skirts dangerously on the things Pepper can’t know, so Clint draws a breath and nods, so Bucky will know Clint hears him, Clint- Clint gets it.

Bucky nods back at him, and wipes his face again, and says, “Be right here, boy, until they get back. Crawl in with Pepper, now, rest a bit. He ain’t in any corners. For once, you don’t gotta worry. And I’ll be watching, too, while you rest up.”

Pepper’s face is tracked with tears, too, he thinks, dumbly, as she tugs and Bucky pushes and he’s guided back down to the pillows. Bucky draws the covers up over him and Pepper settles in beside him, whispering, “Shhh, sleep, Clint. You’re overwrought. It’s too much for one night. Just sleep.”

Clint nods, and Bucky turns down the lights, settling on the couch to think wolfish thoughts in the long dark minutes before the monsters show up.

Clint’s monsters, though, he thinks suddenly. The only monsters who’ll be allowed into this room are the ones that love Clint, that own Clint, and he thinks, a little, of what a relief that is. The Swordsman, Trick Shot, Pa, and now Barney, all gone, all long gone, dead and dusted, meat for the worms, nothing but nightmares and fever dreams left of them. 

Nightmares and fever dreams and the twists they’ve left in Clint’s soul, twists that have led him here, to this place, with the woman beside him and the woman who’s coming for him, later. The man who keeps watch on the couch and the man whose pajamas he wears, the boy in the next room over and the one howling at the moon with the doctor who takes him apart only to patch him back together.

Clint sighs, because there’s no mad left tonight, and no sadness, either. Just a great, hollow, empty, in those old places that had used to fill him up with feelings. A great hollow echo and the sound of Pepper’s sweet breathing beside him, soft and steady and serene. Bucky shifts on the couch and Clint shifts into a more comfortable sprawl in the bed, and lets his heavy lids and limbs press him down, further and further down, until he doesn’t have words and he doesn’t have memories, either. Just the certainty that for tonight, the only monsters who will knock on his door are monsters he’ll want to let in.


	5. Chapter 5

“What have we here?” chuckles the Boss, and Clint’s eyes fly wide open, his muscles jerking awake and then spasming in pain, so much pain, dull and sharp and, well. Sadly, familiar. Fuck, he’s going to have a rough week.

“Oh, Tony, shh,” chides Pepper lowly, from the couch. “He was resting.”

“In my bed. In my pajamas,” points out Tony, smiling more broadly with every statement, with how Clint shifts in discomfort. “Notice you being real generous with what’s mine, Mrs. Stark,” he adds, mockingly severe.

Natasha snorts and leans over in the bed, tracing the Stark Crest on the pocket and looking up at Tony with a heavy gaze. “She learns it from you, Boss,” she says, casually. “You cannot be mad at her when you teach her what will please you and she does it.”

Clint swallows and rolls his eyes at her phrasing, but it makes Tony’s smile widen just a little bit broader as he says huskily, “It does please me, you back in my bed, sweet little blue-eyed bodyguard. Been too long.”

“Aww, Tony,” complains Clint, blushing despite himself because it hasn’t been long _enough_ , in his opinion, “Please, please don’t, I’m- I’m only- Pepper made me put them on-”

“It’s for his own good,” says Pepper stoutly, although there’s a hint of a smile in her voice as she continues, “and yours, too, Mr. Stark. You can direct all of your complaints to the head of the complaint department.”

“Which is me,” clarifies Natasha, with a wicked grin at Tony. 

Tony grins back and says, “What, last night not enough crime and punishment for you?”

Natasha snorts and says, “Crime, yes, punishment?”

Her gaze goes hot and she licks her lips, eyeing Tony up and down in frank appraisal before concluding, “Never enough. You take it so well, Boss.”

Clint shivers and then decides he’s too injured for this. “Liniment, Pepper, please?” he croaks pitifully.

“Twice a day,” she says absently, already returned to her paperwork. “I’ll coat you again before bedtime.”

“Peter’s up,” announces Tony with a smile, reaching out a hand to trace the Stark Crest on the pajamas, batting Natasha’s fingers away when they attempt to reclaim the territory there. “You should go slather it on him.”

“ _You_ should go slather it on him,” mutters Pepper, uncharacteristically annoyed, and she slams a paper down on the small stack beside her. Clint looks up at Tony, who grins back, and mutters, “Tell you later, you’ll die laughing.”

“I heard that, Mr. Stark,” says Pepper severely, standing up. “And no one is dying and no one will be laughing if there is a repeat performance, I swear I’ll sic Bucky on him.”

“Would you, Mrs. Stark?” teases Tony. “Would you do that to that poor, innocent, defenseless-”

“One more word, Mr. Stark,” warns Pepper with a toss of her head, “and I’ll sic Bucky on _you_.”

Clint and Natasha chuckle as Tony throws up his hands and pretends to seal his lips. She glances around the room, clearly searching for the liniment, and then stalks to Natasha’s bathroom, muttering under her breath.

“C’mon, Hawk, let’s get you up,” says Tony, after admiring her a moment longer. “Angel’s real eager to clap eyes on you.”

“I have his clothes, here,” says Natasha, her eyes still glinting with mirth as she watches Pepper storm from the room. “Truly, we kept him in the pajamas for you. He has been up already once this morning.”

“Well, I seen ‘em, and I like you in ‘em,” says Tony forthright as always, his appraising and approving smile making Clint roll his eyes and blush again, dammit, “but now, for the sake of Angel, you’re gonna get outta ‘em, and I’ll help you into yours, and then tonight, you can go back in ‘em, again, and maybe I’ll help you outta ‘em again. We’ll see how you’re feeling.”

“God, Tony,” hisses Clint, rising up and shaking his head, “Can’t you go pet the Cat-”

“I had him, this morning, and he was good, no doubt, and I had Angel most of the ways I needed, to, between this morning and just now, but I’m a greedy man, Hawk, and I can see you need some reminding that you were first,” Tony tells him, his eyes darkening. He begins to unbutton the shirt and continues, as Clint gapes up at him in a small amount of shock, “Maybe the Cat does a better job of rubbing me the right way, getting me to want something other than just blood when I’m- when I’m needing that reminder. But-” he slides the shirt from Clint’s body slowly, and Clint appreciates the care and figures he’ll just have to remember this moment for when he has the energy to _respond_ to it, “-you never should have been allowed to forget what you are to me. Stand up.”

Clint stands, uneasily, as Tony looks at the wrappings, traces over them with quick fingers. “Those’re good, Sergeant's work, they’ll last until later on, the Doc can take a look, see if you’ve cracked anything again.” He puts his hands on Clint’s hips and knocks their foreheads together, the position so damn familiar, from dozens of bloodsoaked alleys and basements and barrooms, that it takes Clint’s breath away and makes him close his eyes against the onslaught of the memories against his senses. “Pretty Blue Eyes, what made you think you needed to apologize to me, of all people, last night?”

“I don’t know,” says Clint, finally. He opens his eyes and tells Tony honestly, “I know I’m yours. I know I’m- I’m ‘Tasha’s and I’m a Stark. You picked me, I know that. I pick you, too. I pick, this is- this is more than-”

“Shh,” hushes Tony, his hands trailing up Clint’s skin so softly the bruises barely report it. “So that was old juju, not new, then?”

Clint nods as best he can with Tony’s forehead resting against his. Tony blinks then, and leans back. “Well, that puts a better spin on it. Had me a little worried you’d forgotten that I don’t need to take a toy off the shelf every day for it to stay mine, and for me to want it.”

“You are so like a child,” agrees Natasha, helping Clint into his shirt before he slides off Tony’s pajama pants and steps out of them.

“Can’t help the greed. But I do balance it out,” points out Tony, starting on the buttons. “I let him in with you, most nights.”

“Yes, and keep him in with _us_ , poor thing, the rest of the nights,” she quips back, handing Clint the softest pair of pants he owns, washed and rewashed and repaired and stitched just for days like this one, which are neither as few nor as far in between as Clint could hope.

Clint shakes his head, because he doesn’t mind staying with them on those nights _at all_ , it’s still the most amazing show he’s ever seen, the Widow and the Butcher, or Tony and Natasha, whichever mood hits them when he’s there. And it’s not like he ain’t wandered down to Bucky’s couch- or his bed, and let them have the time to combust each other without an avid audience, either. If he’s there, it’s because he wants to be, and he knows they know that, too.

“He doesn’t mind, it, do you, pretty blue-eyed bodyguard?” asks Tony, with a thrum in his voice that usually, if he had any energy, Clint’d be responding to, he really would. He pulls up his pants, and then sighs, because his fingers hurt too badly to work the buttons. Tony smiles a little, pleased, as he takes over, fastening them quickly and efficiently. Clint shakes his head and gives the man a grin, instead, telling Tony, “I really don’t mind at all, honest, Boss.”

Tony chuckles and says, “Well, go get in there. Angel’s all worried and excited, earned himself his first real bruises and doesn’t know whether to be proud or go pout. It’s adorable and you should go watch the show, relax a little. You’re off-duty, now, until that hand can hold a gun as easily as the other one.” He flips the suspenders up over Clint’s shoulders and settles them carefully, nodding. “That’s all you’ll need today. Maybe some house shoes, if we can scare ‘em up. Formal suit for dinner, but that’ll be after the Doc can have a look at you.”

Clint nods and heads to the connecting bathroom door to the boys’ suite, his heart feeling strange and light and almost _giddy_. He’s taken worse and lived to talk about it, taken so much he couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe. And Tony Stark trusts him with his Angel, to walk in there unsupervised and handle anything the innocent little lamb throws at him, without twisting the kid up or mucking him up with darkness. It’s a heady feeling, that much trust, and it almost clears out the aches and pains that make him hunch a little, yet.

Natasha, an ever-present shadow since she’d slid into bed early that morning, glides along behind him, amused as ever at his reaction to being allowed near the Angel.

~~~

Peter is in fine form this afternoon, goofing around with Pepper and Bucky about the liniment, and Clint chuckles, and finds he likes it, likes that he can chuckle, even after a night like last night. Being with the Angel is like that, for Clint, reminds him that there are people in this world that are just good and light, who don’t have dark edges that cut or smudge or mar. He’s always been drawn to it, drawn to watching Peter, and he can feel Natasha’s steady understanding as he clings, just a bit, to that brightness, that silliness. That laughter.

Bucky tries to shame Peter with Clint’s busted rib, and Clint watches the color fade from Peter’s face, watches the mirth and joy disappear like sand through his fingertips. _No_ , he thinks fiercely, and so he says, just as fiercely, “I do not,” just to watch Peter relax. No one contradicts him- although Bucky and Steve’s eyebrows fly up, because it’s definitely busted, almost positively busted, there’s no way it’s just a set of bruises. Natasha tightens her grip in what Clint can read as support- she’ll lie for him, about this, too, and Pepper distracts Peter from the moment by re-opening their tussle over the liniment. The moment passes, then, as Clint makes reckless promises to Peter just to see the kid’s face light up like Christmas morning.

He sees a chance to save the kid from Bucky’s temper, and he takes it, because it’s clear from the man’s muttering about Harley that Harley or Peter or, or maybe even Clint, is in for a dose of that temper coming up soon, over something. The man is predictable in how he lets off the steam he builds up in worrying about his pack, that’s for sure. 

Peter is careful in how he phrases the words Barney said, but they clench around Clint’s heart, anyway, and make him viciously happy the Doc was in last night, to give Barney everything he so desperately worked to deserve.

They eat lunch together, in Pepper’s suite, everyone plying Clint with food from the cart while he sits and does nothing, does nothing at all but eat and breathe and keep an eye on Angel. Natasha hovers, he knows, beside him, always beside him, just there, watching. She isn’t even waiting on anything, Clint would be able to tell that, if she was waiting for him to cry or get mad, or need help, need painkillers. No, she’s just there, and watching, and her watchfulness, he thinks, is probably similar to his watchfulness of Angel, the darkness watching its light, the shadow looking to the flame for warmth.

Angel wants to read, because of course he does, the kid can’t sit without doing something with his brain, he’s as bad about that as Harley about needing to do something with his hands. Clint can’t make letters stand straight without real effort, but he can sit beside Angel, letting them prop each other up, soaking in the kid’s warmth, and with help from Natasha and a couchful of pillows, he can even doze while he does it. Dressing for dinner, because he might as well, isn’t easy or fun, but it’s fast, with Peter helping, with Natasha smirking in the background. The walk down to the library isn’t easy or fun, but healing never is. Clint dozes, and doesn’t dream, doesn’t think at all, really, comforted by the smell and sound of Peter beside him, soft and pure and blameless.

He dozes until Steve announces it’s time to switch to the parlor, which makes Natasha perk up. Pepper insists he sit in Tony’s chair, which is the worst, but Natasha gives him a look that reminds him that there’d been a reason he’d slept in Pepper’s bed last night, wearing Tony’s pajamas, and that those _reasons_ tend to linger for Tony, longer than just one day. 

The Butcher doesn’t feel fear, but Tony does, and when he has to put the Butcher back, well. They do their best to comfort Tony, to remind him they’re safe, he saved them, he balanced once again, the risk they take to be Starks with the safety he creates in this home of his, untouchable, here, in the heart of the Empire. Clint can sit and doze, healing up, in any chair. If Tony needs it to be his chair, well. That’s just one more thing Clint can do for Tony.

He hadn’t thought about Phil, about telling Phil, about Phil coming and seeing him all busted and broken, again, all busted and broken because he can’t figure out how to find the right words to prevent people from hurting him. Even now, all grown and flown, in this nice nest of Tony’s, fully-fledged, Clint can’t get around without a silver-tongued guide to protect him from his own dumb stupidity. His own inability to find the right words to say.

He hadn’t thought about Phil, so he’s resentful when Pepper points out that he should have, and he spends the rest of the time fretting, until Jarvis announces Mr. Coulson at the door. 

Clint’s heart is racing, listening for those almost-silent footsteps on the thick carpet, and he thinks about closing his eyes before Phil can get in front of him, pretending to sleep. But Pepper’s here, and Natasha, and Steve- and every one of them will stool pigeon for Phil in a heartbeat. Much like last night in the road with Tony, he can’t bring himself to look up, to look Phil in the eye, just in case- just in case there’s any hint of what he knows he deserves.

Phil looks good, out of the corner of his eye, standing there looking down at him. But he’s doing that thing he does where he waits for Clint to have words, waits and waits, he’ll wait for hours, he has waited hours, for Clint to say something, anything. Finally, Clint bursts out, “I did what I could, okay? Look, not one mark on my whole head, tucked it tight, immediately!”

“Did I say I was disappointed in your work?” asks Phil mildly, as Happy stands and offers Phil his seat on the couch closest to Clint’s chair. His voice is calm and relaxed, a contrast to the whirlwind inside Clint, always so damn calm and poised when Clint feels like such a twisted wreck. It makes Clint want to lean towards him, the way he’d leaned on Angel in the library. Lean towards Phil, soak up all of that warmth, too, that warm confidence that there’s nothing in Clint so shocking, so startling, so disgusting, that it requires any kind of response other than easy acceptance. 

Happy stands from his spot on the couch and Phil replaces him, murmuring his thanks.

“How could you be?” asks Natasha smoothly, her hand threading through Clint’s hair so gently, resting there, comforting him. “His work was excellent.”

“Exactly,” agrees Phil, leaning forward to take two cookies from the tray and pass one to Clint, pressing it into his hand. “Above average, as always, Hawkeye.”

Clint vents a chuckle, his throat closing, because he knows Phil doesn’t mean it like that, but yeah, his brother kidnapping Angel in the very center of Clint’s former turf? Yeah, that’s above average for a fuck-up like Clint. That’s above average, right there.

Clint knows he’s not being fair to them, but they shouldn’t have brought Phil in, they should have just, should have let Clint figure this out, let him just- have a day, maybe, to soak up Angel’s sweetness and ignore his own hurts. One goddamn day, before bringing Phil in and making Clint, making him- Phil is just _cheating_ , he thinks wildly, tipping his head back in something like despair, something more than just exhaustion and pain. Phil reaches over to hold his injured hand and Clint chokes back tears because it’s just _cheating_ , bringing Phil into the mix, it’s cheating and they all know it.

The conversation swirls around him, and he’s not needed, it’s all strategy and words, what words they’re going to use to send messages, what messages their allies and competition need to hear. Phil’s here, so Natasha is free to wander, and she does, wandering over to Angel to witness the lines she never had interest in when Pepper would make Harley write them. Clint could laugh, because Phil had made him do lines, of a sort, when he’d first pulled Clint from the Russians to work for him. He’d made Clint write out word by painstaking word all of the words Clint couldn’t say, his rap sheet list of all the things he’d done, the people who might feel like Clint owed them something. And then, horribly, even worse, all of the people who owed Clint, all of the things done to him.

Of everyone in this room, only Phil knows all of Barney’s red columns in Clint’s book, the things done in the name of family, of survival, of cruelty and of appeasing others, and it makes Clint acutely aware of every red jot on those old pages, long gone now. Phil would never let anyone have such a hold over anyone in his care, under his protection. Those old pages are long gone, now, from everywhere, except two heads, now. Two heads, one Clint’s and the other… the other Phil’s. It’s a heady thought, that there are only two people who know all of those sins, those moments of fear and shame and weakness and pain, and even more so, the thought that he can trust the other person not to use the knowledge to hurt him.

Harley pops in, distracting and welcome, winking at Clint as he presses himself against Pepper’s leg. He tips his head towards Phil and pulls a face, which makes Clint feel light again, because yeah, okay. Phil isn’t the worst thing Clint’s survived in the last day, and Harley’s got a point, sitting there with Pepper’s hands stroking through his hair, offering comfort because she does love her wild son, too, even though she likes to roll her eyes at his antics. For all it’s absolutely awful to have Phil here, passing him cookies with absolute authority and approval, it’s also… nice, too. He lifts the cookie and takes a bite while Harley razzles and dazzles, full of sparkling energy, making Clint laugh more than once.

His rib is aching again when Bucky and Tony slide in. Tony notes Clint in his red chair and says nothing, giving Clint a dark smoldering look that makes Clint wish he had the energy to reply with a yelp and a leap up, running from the room. Tony always does like a chase, and no one can give him a run like Clint does, Clint admits. He ducks his head at Tony instead, feeling the faint blush creep up his cheeks, and Tony’s broad grin slides across his face, probably picturing that same chase Clint can’t give him, right now.

Phil slips him another cookie as casually as straightening his own tie, and Bucky mouths, “Eat, boy,” from across the room, where he’s messing with Angel. Of course he’s messing with Angel, Bucky’s as predictable as a clock, thinks Clint in exasperation, taking a big showy bite of the cookie just to keep the Wolf satisfied. Bucky grins, broad and bold, at him, as Pepper informs everyone of the time of dinner and that the doctor will be in to do check ups, at which time, she expects everyone to go make themselves presentable for a dinner _with company_. Everyone generally approves, although Clint attempts to argue that he doesn’t need one, Doc looked at him last night, and he _doesn’t have a busted rib._ There’s barely a pause as he gives Angel at the desk a pointed look and the information is absorbed by everyone. Steve sets his jaw a little bit, and Happy rolls his eyes, but the rest of the crew just keep talking, their silence on the issue of Clint’s particular brand of cracked support enough.

When the Doc enters, Clint doesn’t let it make him jump, not an inch, not a flinch. Phil still straightens a bit, coming to attention, eyes piercing Clint’s unease to provide calm, hands reaching to unwrap the bandaged hand, assisting the doctor without being asked, assisting Clint as if there was never any doubt of his authority to do so. Phil makes a noise as they skim Clint’s undershirt up off of his torso, and Clint says, huskily, “Ain’t nothing, boss, promise. Taken worse in alleys.”

“Not _my_ alleys,” says Phil shortly, and yeah, that’s fair, Barney hasn’t been able to touch Clint, not since Phil took Clint on. Phil’s made damn sure of that, the past half decade. Not in Phil’s alleys, and not on Phil’s time, and _fuck_ , but Clint wishes he’d had Phil yesterday, because Angel wouldn’t have been snatched like that, Barney wouldn’t have touched him, if only Phil had been there to run the talking, instead of Clint.

Phil checks in with Pepper while the Doc begins the examination. Doc goes straight for the most important part to Clint, which is that this time, he didn’t let his head take any damage. It drives Phil nuts when Clint’s brain addled, Phil and Natasha both, who have seen men walk away from fights and die in the night too often not to count the silent deadliness of a kick to the head. Doc doesn’t know that, but Clint’s grateful he started with the head, so Phil can breathe easier right away.

The Doc takes out his stethoscope and listens to Clint’s stomach, his heart, his breathing, and asks, “Everything’s moving along, you have no pain when I press here? Or here?”

“Didn’t get to my stomach,” Clint grunts, wondering if any of the people in the room had time to find the Doc and clue him in, wondering if the Doc’s last words to Harley about sucking eggs has anything to do with keeping his busted rib a secret from Angel, like Clint needs to happen. He sees the sharp look in Phil’s eyes and tells it, “Told you, Phil, I tucked up, and their hearts weren’t in it, not really. Just a bunch of weekenders, not a real crew at all.”

“Extensive bruising to your ribs,” mutters Doc Banner looking directly into Clint’s eyes, and answering the question about whether anybody got to him and clued him in. Clint nods, minutely, to let the man know he appreciates it, appreciates this small deception. The Doc nods back, eyes solemn, and warns Clint, “I’m going to press on it, I need to feel if anything shifts-”

“Just go ahead, Doc, get it over with,” grunts Clint irritably, because he knows the Doc has to check, to make sure it’s just cracked and not broken, just cracked and not, not busted in a way that’ll need more work. He’s grateful the man is willing to play pretend with him, but he can get it over with a little faster, by Clint’s reckoning.

Clint makes no noise as Doc slides his hands up and down Clint’s back and sides, but Peter watches his lips press together and how his injured hand, held in Phil’s, jerks and squeezes, before falling limp because _dammit_ that had hurt.

“Nothing feels broken,” says the Doc carefully, clearly for Angel’s benefit, and it’s a little over the top, for a false diagnosis. No one else would believe that, they’ve all seen too many busted ribs, heard the Doc say, in that careful, scientific tone of his, _I can’t confirm a diagnosis of cracked or not cracked without an X-ray, Tony. You know I wish you’d install a machine somewhere, if you won’t go to the hospital. Better proceed with caution._

Phil’s lips twitch, out of sight of Peter, and Clint realizes this moment _is_ funny, isn’t it? The monster lying to the angel, on behalf of Clint, broken and busted Clint, who needs him to lie for who knows what reason. Certainly not Clint.

He relaxes back a little, now that everyone has shown willing to play along, now that no one is challenging his need to play pretend in this way, and quips for Phil, “It’s a circus miracle.”

Phil shakes his head at Clint, because the deception about his cracked rib _is_ ridiculous and unnecessary. Clint shrugs back at him, because he can’t help that he’s got some wires loose inside, and this one, at least, is harmless.

Doc Banner slides Clint’s injured hand out of Phil’s hands and pores over it, twisting it this way and that, making Clint hiss, remembering the examination in the hallway the night before. Remembering the doc’s dilated eyes and how he’d radiated menace and violence, and reveled in the way his hands hurt Clint’s hands, cataloging the damage. Sweat breaks out on Clint’s forehead, over his whole body, wanting the Doc gone, now, and holding still, because this time, this time there’s a real assessment happening, a real verdict on the damage. Finally, after what feels like an hour added into the day, an hour of pain and holding still for the Doc, the Doc declares, “Nothing broken, not that I can feel. Flesh damage. Nothing torn, or- it’ll be fine, Clint, you’ll be shooting arrows and slinging bullets again in a couple of weeks.”

Clint lets out a shaky breath as the Doc looks up at him, eyes calm and concerned, and completely sane. Clint nods, and the Doc’s lips quirk in a smile as he adds, “Stand up, let’s have a look at the rest of it.”

The Doc helps him out of his pants easily enough, and if that doesn’t strike memories that Clint would rather remain buried… well… he can rebury them again as soon as this is done, and at least the Doc ain’t lingering.

Clint watches Pepper tousle Peter’s hair, gently, absently, as she murmurs, “See? He’s _fine_ , Angel. Bruised and a little battered, but nothing broken. Start unbuttoning that shirt, you’re next, and dinner won’t wait on us tonight.”

Peter starts to strip out of his shirt as Clint’s eyes fly to Phil’s, wondering, wondering if it’s okay for him to be here, for that, if it’s okay to for Clint to see. Phil’s return impassivity and tilt of his head reminds Clint that he’s seen plenty of Peter, in the pool, and this will be no different. Clint nods, because that’s a point, that’s- that’s a good point. 

His palms get sweaty anyway. The kid doesn’t need a sicko like Clint leering over at him, thinks Clint, focusing on anywhere but where Peter is stripping down.

The Doc leans back and sighs up at Clint, “Well, light duty, lots of rest. Bruises like that, you’ll be peeing dark, but you call me if there’s bright blood, any sudden pain, you know the drill, Phil.”

“I do,” concedes Phil, with a warning glance at Clint. 

Clint mumbles, “Don’t need a nursemaid, boss,” but Phil raises a challenging eyebrow at this statement, the memory of a half-dozen recoveries that hadn’t gone well rising up like ghosts between them. Clint rolls his eyes, because there’s no point in starting that fight, he’s already lost it, and nods at Phil, whose eyes widen just a bit in acknowledgement of his victory, humor flashing sharply. 

Phil helps Clint slide the undershirt down and the pants up, resettling him back in the chair as Clint grunts. “Good work,” he murmurs, the praise loaded with approval for Clint’s stamina, his strength, his ability to handle the Doc’s poking and prodding without fighting the care. Clint flushes a bit, because he can’t help it, can’t help being pleased that Phil’s pleased, and then ignores everything in the room to struggle with the buttons on his shirt until Doc starts chiding Peter about the _new_ tear in his lip, and then he and Phil share a sardonic look, thinking of what the kid was doing with Tony last night that got Tony into such a calm state so quick. Clint snorts when the Doc teases Angel about light duty and lots of rest, but then shifts uncomfortably when the Doc’s demeanor changes to concern about Peter’s stomach.

“You take a hit here, too, last night?” Doc asks sharply. “Some internal swelling, Peter Stark.”

“What?” asks Clint, glaring up from the buttons he’s attempting to wrestle away from Phil’s quick fingers. “He punch you in the gut, too? God _damnit_ , Barney. Went too quick with him, Doc.”

“I don’t believe I did,” murmurs the Doc quietly, and Clint freezes, eyes darting up to Phil’s face. Phil’s frozen, too, he can see that, frozen in cold back alleys and hot furnace rooms, frozen by the memories of nights that Clint can’t take away from him, nights before Clint had even thought to beg him to just stay away. He can handle about anything, but he’s also seen about everything, and Clint doesn’t want- Clint’s been there, when the man has woken up from nightmares, nightmares that were nothing but memories, and watching Phil freeze now is like watching him wake on those nights. Clint hates it, hates everything, and especially hates that he’s too frozen to reach out and help Phil.

Doc Banner senses the mood shift in the room and sighs, “Not on my hooch now, Peter. Safe as a lamb, promise,” which, if that were true, is news to Clint. The man’s close to sane, now, with his damned antidote, but he’s still not safe as a lamb. 

Phil’s lips twitch and he shakes his head as he takes advantage of Clint’s shakiness to button the damn shirt for him, the jerk.

The Doc scares Angel up a little with how gut damage can go wrong, and then asks the Angel to be a good little patient. That’d make two of them, thinks Clint. Two of them in this whole insane house, because even Pepper can be the worst of the lot when she’s sick, and downright obstinate when injured. And Clint’s really only on this side of the divide, the good patient side, because of that damned need to please, the way the praise slides down his spine and makes him feel _good_. Otherwise he’d be just as awful as anyone else.

Clint makes a quip about Peter’s bruising looking just like an average night, and Pepper points out, no, not just any night, a _Friday_ night, the night Tony traditionally takes Harley out tomcatting, and Natasha comes home hot up to Clint. Clint about swallows his tongue, with how close she rides the line between things Angel ain’t supposed to know- but Angel don’t ask, like the good kid he is. Like the sweet angelbaby Tony keeps calling him.

There’s other talk then, teasing from Pepper about Natasha’s fascination with the Doc that makes Phil and Clint bond in a single glance over their wild woman and her Sheba ways. She’s already got a harem, but she does love her monsters, and it’s not hard for either one of them to see why she toys with the idea of adding Doc Banner. It’s not hard at all.

Phil guides Clint to the dining room with a firm hand on his back, settling him in a chair and providing extra pillows on the arms, for support. Clint wants to put his head down on the table and throw a really drop down drag out ing bing of a fit, but he holds it in because he’s a Stark, and Starks are strong, and their allies need to see that, more than any other thing, tonight. They’ll get a good look at Tony’s face, and remember the clean up work they did last night, and they’ll get a good look at Peter’s and remember it was just two slaps that earned that whole crew the damage they took. They’ll get a good look at Clint, and see a Stark bodyguard survive a seven-man take down, and what they don’t know about Barney’s men’s little half-hearted mutiny, won’t hurt Hawkeye’s reputation tomorrow. 

He may not want this dinner, but he’ll go, and he’ll sit through it, with gritted teeth if he has to, and just pray Phil finds a way to get them out after the last course is served.

~~~

Phil sighs, closing the door to Natasha’s room, and gently pushing Clint toward the bed. “Go, get undressed, I’ll go dig for that miracle rub of Pepper’s,” he directs gently, leaving Clint’s side to walk briskly towards the bathroom that connects the suites.

Clint’s feet carry him to the bed with heavy plodding steps. Beside it, he pauses for a long minute before starting the tortuous process of heeling out of the house shoes, sliding the suspenders down his shoulders to hang at his side. Dinner had been long, sitting in the chair ignoring his aches and pains and picking at his food, under the watchful eyes of Phil and ‘Tasha. He’d missed most of the conversation, and honestly, it had been a relief when Phil had stood quietly and with no fuss, and told Tony he needed Clint. The Italians hadn’t been fooled, and neither had anyone else at the table, but it had made the neat, polite exit that Pepper expected during company dinners.

“Found it,” announces Phil, and then he walks to stand in front of Clint, tipping Clint’s chin up. “Can’t do the buttons?” he asks softly, with infinite kindness and gentleness.

Clint shakes his head, hating the display of weakness, the pain in his fingers, the dull ache in his side. He hates that his eyes fill with tears, hates that he could be so strong, if Phil would just be rough or harsh or anything but what he’s going to be, what Clint has dreaded and looked forward to and felt foolish about all evening. 

“It’s my pleasure,” Phil informs him, canceling out all of Clint’s self-disgust with his small smile, his cool acceptance that Clint needs help right now. _It’s only practical,_ his half-hidden smile says. _Don’t be ridiculous._

Clint nods, and Phil presses kisses to his bent forehead as he works the buttons. “My sweet Hawk,” he murmurs to Clint’s hairline. “What a busted up mess they’ve made of you.”

Clint hates that he doesn’t protest, doesn’t even try to argue. Phil has always been like this, though, soft and sweet, lapping at Clint’s defenses like the waves of a vast unchanging ocean, or like the soft kiss of each individual snowflake in a blizzard. Phil can make Natasha blink and relax, is the only man Clint has ever seen talk the Butcher down, and once walked into a poorhouse where Doc was destroying walls and walked back out with him trailing behind, muttering and glaring madly at the sun. Clint has never stood a chance, not against that, and so he gives in and lets the man _take care_ of him.

Phil goes slow, slow and calm with the same things that Bucky would do quickly, as punishment for making him worried, that Tony would do with dramatic flair, to draw Clint’s attention away from his hurts. Phil goes slow, sure of his welcome, sure that Clint will take whatever Phil wants to give.

He hisses, though, when he sees the bruising again, and mutters, “A battered mess,” kissing Clint’s forehead with a pained expression. 

“Where were all the Stark men?” Phil asks him dispassionately, like the answer doesn’t matter. The trick is, everything Phil asks, everything he’s interested in, always matters, despite the stories his mannerisms tell. Natasha can make it seem that she’s interested in anyone and anything, deeply interested, entirely invested, but Phil is the exact mirror opposite, unimpressed by everything and everyone, every detail, while studying it minutely and with rapt fascination.

Clint laughs shakily, here where it’s safe, so safe to be undone, “Didn’t plan on needing ‘em. Was just taking Peter out, gonna get the lay of the midway. Was gonna take the whole crew the next night.”

“Ah,” says Phil, and there’s no disapproval in his voice as he says, “well. I’ll tighten up the security a bit, while I’m here.”

Clint flinches, muttering, “We was gonna- ‘Tasha and I just got back-”

“I know. Yesterday morning. God, what a day yesterday must have been for you.”

The compassion in the man’s voice breaks Clint’s heart, because he’s told Phil and told Phil, he shouldn’t waste it on Clint.

Phil slips the undershirt up, his hands skimming the surface of Clint’s skin and causing gooseflesh to rise. “Didn’t even have time, to send runners to warn you Barney’d been spotted, you were already at the circus, and my eyes didn’t have him there, not until, well- I was behind, sweet Hawk, or I would have been there, in Little Italy.”

“No,” protests Clint wildly, “Not- you don’t- I don’t want you-”

“I know,” says Phil, and Clint can hear the smile in his voice, as he presses one hand to the unbruised center of Clint’s chest and pushes, guiding Clint to sit on the bed with firm caution. “I know you don’t want it to touch me. But I’ve known Tony for longer than you, Pretty Blue.”

Clint snorts at that, as Phil sits beside him on the bed. “Thought you said that was a stupid name,” he grunts.

“I agreed that you thought it was an annoying habit of Tony’s,” corrects Phil, twisting to grab the jar from the table. He unlids it, and the scent of healing and home fills Clint’s nostrils. His eyes leak again, just a bit, remembering all of the times Pepper has forced this gunk on him. All of the times she’s praised him for being the easiest man in the house to take care of. All of the aches and pains he’s brought home to her, over the years, that they’ve both survived.

“I’m not pretty like some dame,” Clint mutters. 

“No, you’re pretty like you,” agrees Phil, spreading the first layer on the bicep nearest him, smoothing it with cautious fingers, leaving enough of a trail of pain for Clint to remember the exact pressure and motion while he moves to the the bruises on Clint’s forearm, then hand.

“I’m not pretty at all,” argues Clint, but his voice falters just a little, just a hint. “Dammit, you treat me like a doll, like a china doll, Phil, and I’ll- I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” asks Phil, amused. There’s silence, while he works the gunk across Clint’s heaving chest, across the ribs that ache and spike with pain as Clint shifts his weight on the bed, silent. “Yeah. That’s what I thought, tough guy,” he teases Clint. Clint opens his eyes to glare, and Phil’s small smile mocks him. Phil stretches down and slides the gunk across Clint’s nearest thigh, hitting every single bruise and making Clint shiver. He leans down and gets the shins- Clint’s shins and forearms having taken most of the damage, in the fetal position he’d managed to pull himself into for the short round of half-hearted kicking. 

“Worst of it’s over,” says Phil evenly, shifting to stand and sit back down on Clint’s other side. Clint could cry, because that’s not true, that’s not true at all. Phil lets his broken breathing go on and on, as he smooths the sticky cream everywhere that hurt, all day long, lighting fires and burning warmth into Clint while he sits naked on the bed and trembles.

“Shh, sweet Hawk,” murmurs Phil, spreading it at last in huge swaths across Clint’s back, where the bruising, well. Where half of the kicks must have landed, the half that didn’t hit forearms or shins. That’s math Clint can do in his sleep, _has_ done in his sleep, so many nightmare-strewn nights. When he’s done, Phil caps the pot and puts it on the bedside, and then hauls Clint back up beside him to stand. 

Clint lets out a noise that he swears he didn’t intend to, and Phil shushes him again, drawing back the covers and pulling all of the pillows up, up onto the bed. “You slept laying down last night,” he tells Clint. “But you didn’t sleep, you tossed.”

He did. He’d slept better in the damn chair in that basement in Little Italy than he’d slept in with Pepper, last night, with the ache in his side pulsing with every breath.

Phil hums. “Part of that was the rib wrapping. Busted ribs need more room to breathe, not less. Tonight, you’ll sleep up on the pillows, and it’ll go better for you, you’ll see.”

“Natasha-” begins Clint, but Phil snorts, “Natasha is in with Tony and Pepper, tonight, and you know that. You knew that when we left the table and she stayed behind.”

Yeah, he’d guessed it.

“And I don’t sleep with pillows,” Phil reminds him. “And there are more pillows in this wing of the Mansion alone than there are in all of Harlem, so don’t go feeling guilty.”

Clint shakes his head. “Okay, boss,” he sighs, sliding down onto the bed in a controlled half-fall, half-crumple, half-exhausted scramble.

“Aspirin,” says Phil, after covering Clint up carefully, arranging the pillows so that everywhere Clint needs support, there’s a pillow doing the job. He disappears, then, the sound of running water and pill bottles in the bathroom, and reappears with that same small smile on his face. He passes the cup to Clint to take a sip, because Clint needs that, first, before he can swallow down pills, it’s an old trick of his mother’s- and then pops the pills into Clint’s mouth after Clint nods his readiness. Clint swallows, easily, and has no idea why his eyes are burning, again.

“You’re tired,” Phil reminds him, and Clint nods back. Phil walks along the stretch of Pepper’s bed, one hand trailing the foot rail, and says, “Ten minutes, I’ll be back. You fall asleep waiting if you want. I won’t mind, Hawk.”

Clint nods, closing his eyes.

When he opens them again, it’s not to Phil, it’s to Tony, his fingers threading through Clint’s hair gently. “Hey, Pretty Blue Eyes,” he murmurs. “Only got a sec, have to get back, entertain mio zio some more.”

Clint’s disoriented- he had no idea the door had even opened to let Tony in. Tony smiles down at him, a similar smile to the one Phil’s been wearing, and says, “You smell like Pepper’s potion. I’ll let her know Phil took care of it, tonight. You look good, good set up, here. Missing my pajamas, but a man can’t have everything.”

Clint snorts and Tony’s face cracks into a far more familiar teasing grin. “Pepper said Doc said the rib is cracked, huh?”

Clint shrugs as best he can as Tony traces his cheekbones. “Well,” concedes Tony eventually. “Phil’s here. Let him take care of, of everything, okay? I got your woman, gonna keep her outta your hair tonight, let you rest some.”

Clint nods, so grateful Tony doesn’t need words, never really needs words, is like Natasha and Phil, can read him like an open book. “You’re not on duty, you hear me?” grates Tony. “No- no anything, tonight, tomorrow, until that rib heals up, nothing.” His hand makes a chopping motion. 

Clint flinches and then, because he can’t help it, he smirks up at Tony and says, “What? Nothing?”

Tony’s answering smile is blazing. “Well, well,” he chuckles. “Whatever light duties you’re up for, in that department. I’m sure Natasha’ll keep me posted.”

“Phil says he’s staying,” Clint tells Tony, letting the smirk continue to curve his lips, just a little, just because he likes to see the return light in Tony’s eyes.

“Good,” answers Tony. “See if you can keep him longer. Been dying to trick him away from Fury’s clutches for years, now. Hell, bed’s big enough for four, if that’s what it takes to get Phil here and working for me full time.” Clint’s well aware that the bed can fit five, if need be, and he knows Tony remembers that night, too, from the way the man’s lips quirk up and he eyes the bed.

“Fury is not interested,” reports Phil with the smallest amount of exasperation tinging his voice as he re-enters the room. “He’s told you, I’ve told you, Maria has told you, I’m not sure what’s hard to understand about _I don’t fuck men_ , Mr. Stark.”

“The ‘don’t fuck’ part,” Tony splutters, his eyes cheerful as he winks at Clint. “‘Specially when they’re something else, like Pretty Blue, here. You got him tonight?”

“I do, Mr. Stark, thank you,” says Phil politely, and then he pauses and Clint breaks into a big grin, because no one dismisses the Boss, no one. But then, well, _Phil_.

Tony grins at Phil and raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, I know when I’m not wanted. He looks good, you do good work, nurse.”

“I intend to continue to, Mr. Stark,” says Phil threateningly, and Tony laughs, brushing his hands through Clint’s hair one last time before pulling back.

“All right, all right, I’m headed back. Just- just needed to see,” admits Tony, quieter, and if his voice is steady, his eyebrows are a little nervous, a little hesitant, and if Clint can see that, Phil can read every single emotion behind it, and trace it back to all of Tony’s mental cracks and craigs.

“I got him,” Phil says, unblinking. “Scram.”

“Gone,” laughs Tony, then, and retreats through the door to the hallway.

“That Boss of yours,” sighs Phil. 

Clint grins up at him and says, “I know.”

“Rest,” says Phil severely, and Clint recognizes the striped pajamas he’s wearing as the same striped pajamas he’s always worn, plain and serviceable. He climbs into the bed after turning down all but the one tableside lamp, making the room dark and dim with a gentle glow, and Clint can feel the haze begin again, the soft pull of sleep and darkness lowering his lids without any effort.

“Long day,” yawns Phil. “Go to sleep, Hawk.”

“Yes, sir,” slurs Clint, as his limbs begin to feel heavy.

“I’ll wake up with you, be here when you need me,” yawns Phil.

“Yes, sir,” slurs Clint again, but it takes all the effort he has left, and he slips off to sleep again before he catches anything else Phil might say.


	6. Chapter 6

Phil’s still sleeping in Natasha’s bed two weeks later, when Clint no longer needs to be propped on the pillows, when he’s starting to forget that he’s still injured until he twists or turns just wrong. When he’s starting to notice how often Phil’s eyes linger on his body, something more than concern heating them, and how often Natasha’s fingers drift across his skin, absently stroking him in patterns he recognizes. If it’s like every other injury Phil’s ever stayed to tend, it’ll be another week or so before he starts getting itchy to get back to Fury’s side. There’s been runners every day, and he’s taken trips, whole days away from the Mansion, but it ain’t the same, and Clint knows it.

Phil will always have a home here, at the Mansion, but he ain’t a Stark, and so he’ll be heading home in a week or so. Thank God for that week, though, because Clint- for the first time in Clint’s life, he don’t have to worry about when this will all bust up and go sour, and it’s led to some twists deep inside him untwisting and that’s led to, well, this moment, when he’s thinking how much he wants to touch them back, the two of them, who are right here beside him.

Clint can’t roll over without clumsiness, which means he can’t roll over without shaking everything, but he can lift a careful hand and trail it down the side of Phil’s face, waking him up soft and gentle. Phil startles, so minutely that Natasha doesn’t stir, and then breathes, blinking, becoming instantly alert in the way that Clint loves. It’s late morning, and warm enough for Phil to be just a little uncomfortable sandwiched between the two of them in his pajamas, Clint would guess, but Phil doesn’t complain. Instead, he shifts to face Clint and smiles. “Heya, Hawk,” he mumbles, his voice sleep-roughened. “You need something?”

“Yes,” says Clint simply, because it’s always easier to be simple, with them. Always easier, by far, to stick to the basics. He shifts, and yeah, it’s uncomfortable, but it ain’t gonna kill him, and it’s worth it, to lay a kiss on Phil’s cheek and pull back, watch the eyes darken with desire, watch Natasha, asleep on the other side of Phil, wake up and take in the situation. 

They don’t need much encouragement, Phil and ‘Tasha, he’ll say that about them.

Natasha’s smug and slightly cruel curved smile breaks across her face as she stretches and wraps her arms possessively around Phil’s neck. “Boss,” she hums, “looks like your boy is ready to pay some bills.”

“He don’t owe me anything,” chuckles Phil, raising a hand to trail it down Clint’s neck, his eyes darkening further with intensity as Clint takes a deep breath and doesn’t cough, as he’s done throughout the healing process, after that first day of too-shallow breathing. “Although, yeah, he could try to impress me a little,” he admits, and Clint’s desire thrums through him so quickly he gasps a little with the heady rush of it. 

“You want that, Hawk?” teases Phil, his sharp eyes noting everything, and Natasha laughs as Clint nods silently and earnestly.

“About time,” she taunts Clint, as Phil dips his head into a demanding kiss, his tongue diving into Clint’s mouth eagerly. Clint doesn’t mind the morning breath at all, because he’s not thinking about it, he’s thinking about the way the rest of him feels, pressed up against Phil, how it feels to have the man’s dick stiffen into an erection between them. 

“How do you want us, boss,” chuckles Natasha, sliding in against Phil’s back, running her hands between them- along the naked flesh of Clint’s abdomen- to brush her knuckles against Clint’s dick as she strokes Phil through his pajama pants. It reminds Clint of so many missions for Fury, in that year while Tony’d been courting Natasha and Phil had been playing chaperone, building Natasha’s New York reputation and making sure that the instant attraction didn’t sour. _How do you want us, boss_ , she’d ask, every night, like they came as a set and Phil could split them up or keep them together, send one high and the other low, keep one in Harlem and send the other to Bed–Stuy, put one on bodyguard and the other on assassination. 

Or those simpler nights, when she’d said it just as throatily, sliding her body over Phil’s, grinning over at Clint beside her on that cheap bed. Clint loves the words, loves how she says them, just for Phil, just to watch his eyes snap and flash, once, before settling back into that cool control. 

“Our sweet Hawk’s a little busted, don’t know if you noticed,” Phil mentions to her, interrupting his kiss with Clint. “Gonna have to go easy on him.”

Clint makes a noise of protest before he thinks about it, because he’s always like that, always getting himself signed up for more trouble, more hurt. Natasha murmurs, “Sounds like he disagrees.”

Phil says, quellingly, “Behave,” and she chuckles richly, her dark eyes laughing at Clint from over Phil’s shoulder. He smiles back at her as Phil sighs, “Both of you. Clint, on your back. Natasha, western.”

“Oooh, a show,” coos Natasha, as they all shift, the other two moving quicker than normal so that Clint can take his sweet time getting to the center of the bed and on his back without straining anything. She wears some satin number, in Stark red and gold, tight around her tits and loose everywhere else, but she didn’t bother to put on the knickers, and Clint _appreciates_ that about her. She’s so damn efficient. She kneels over him and leans down to whisper against his lips, “не двигайся, мой ястреб.” Clint nods, and holds himself as still as he can, because this is one of her favorite ways to mess with him, and it’s the best suited to his current busted-rib condition.

Phil chuckles and waits for her to slide down a little farther before he begins to kiss Clint’s lips, possessive and pure, perfect, perfect, for this moment of tense anticipation.

She’s so careful with him, gliding her wet warmth down his shaft, still sticky with Phil’s release from the night before. Hell, Phil’s and probably Tony’s, too. Clint’d still been grounded, but he hadn’t minded, since it meant teaching Angel how to shoot billiards with Steve and Happy and Pepper, which, as far as memories go, compares to this moment right here pretty well. She sinks down, and it feels, after two weeks, it feels like heaven and home and everything Clint’s been missing in this new, safer world.

He looks up at her and tries to tell her without words everything he feels, about how she feels against his skin, about what she can have, that she can have everything. She looks down at him like a trickster goddess, a half-smile playing on her lips, enjoying his worship as she rises and sinks- rises up, and slams her hips down, her inner walls growing wetter by the second. He’d follow her anywhere, but she’d told him to hold still, and so he does, although thrusting up is all he wants to do- up, up, in that warm and welcoming wetness.

Phil demands his attention with a flick of his tongue, and Clint groans because they’re going to devour him with gentleness, break him with beauty and quiet and sweetness, he knows it. This ain’t his first busted rib, with the two of them. The nice thing about Phil is, he knows his playbook, and he calls the classics that get the job done. And this one? This one is definitely going to satisfy all of them, in so many, many ways.

Natasha places a gentle hand on his abs, pressing more for balance and his attention than anything else, and he gasps as she shifts her hips forward in a new, twisting pattern that feels amazing. Clint begins to breathe wildly through his nose, which last week would have killed him with coughing, but this morning he can handle it, can handle the irregular breathing and God- God- he cannot handle her, though. He can’t handle her, at all, the things- how she’s so wet, so wet and tight, around him, how she _moves_ \- he wants to toss his head, but Phil still has his lips captured, so instead he groans, low and needy. She chuckles back at him, clearly enjoying how he responds to this, clearly trusting that he’ll stay still because she told him to. 

Phil breaks from his lips to watch her and then begins to whisper in Clint’s ear all the things he’s done to her in the past week, all the ways he’s had her when Clint was too laid up to take care of her. It’s a long litany of lust and lewdness, told in Phil’s most clinical, clipped voice, the one that he uses when he’s doing books and has to snap, “I don’t care, did you get a receipt?” Clint knows he’s twisted in all the worst ways when that somehow makes it _worse_ , those filthy words told in a tone of complete disdain. He’s gasping and red faced, ready to thrust up, when Natasha looks down at him, already sweat-soaked and a little strained herself, and tells him, “Oh, no, мой ястреб, I want him in you when you come for us.”

Clint shakes his head, disbelieving, because, no, they can’t- they can’t expect- and Phil’s voice is hard by his ear as he growls, “You’ll give your lady what she wants, Hawk. You’re trying to impress me, aren’t you?”

Natasha smiles down at him, elated, her eyes flashing as she watches him do the math on this scenario and find himself losing and winning any way it plays out. He nods, then, tossing his head, both hands tightening on her hips as she shimmies up and down, intent on driving him mad. “Y-yes, sir,” he hisses, his snarl directed up at her.

Phil chuckles and says, “Gentle, Hawk, you’re not the type to go leaving bruises, unless something drastic’s changed.”

“Not the type,” agrees Natasha, licking her lips, her eyes half-lidded in that way she gets just before- her hips start stuttering, chasing her release, and Clint feels her clench around him with a sense of disbelief. He has to close his eyes because if he watches, if he watches, he’s going to- going to-

Phil chuckles and mutters, “Clint, I wanted to watch a show with you. Open ‘em up, Hawk.”

“N-no,” Clint begs, panting hard.

“N-no, sir,” repeats Phil in a whisper before putting an edge in his tone again to say, “Open, Hawk.”

Clint whimpers and thrusts, making Natasha laugh and clap her hands gently on the sides of his lower abdomen. “Stay still,” she chides him. “I do not want you to get hurt.”

“That’s a-” he gasps, “-change.”

“It is,” she agrees, grinding down. Phil reaches down one hand and she gasps as he begins to swirl his finger against her mound.

“Open, Hawk,” directs Phil again, and he won’t say anything a third time, Clint knows, so he flutters his eyes open, to see Phil looking at him while swirling his finger on Natasha’s clit, as she smiles at Phil and only Phil. It makes a hot brightness in Clint’s chest burst into flame, to be- to be just a thing, a thing Natasha uses, not- not- not precious, just a- like a cracked stool, _you gotta be careful sitting on it_ \- as Natasha rides him, her hot wetness warming him up from the crotch to his stomach, to the blush on his cheeks, at his hairline.

“There,” says Phil in satisfaction. “You gonna give ‘im the show I wanted?” he asks Natasha, his voice genuinely curious, “Or just bounce there all morning?”

“Phil,” she gasps, and Phil says, “Yes, devil woman? Oh, did you want more? More like this?” 

He must do something with his fingers, something clever, because Natasha gasps again and tips her head back, her hips entirely losing their rhythm. 

“Oh, yes, do you see this, Hawk,” asks Phil, in an avid voice.

“Y-yes,” begs Clint. “P-please, Phil.”

“You’re next, you know,” says Phil, conversationally. “But first she has to- Natasha, did I tell you to stop?”

Natasha bites her lip and tips her head back, her hands clutching her thighs, as her hips pick up the stuttering rhythm. She’s so close, Clint can feel how tightly she wraps around him, how slick and wet she’s become. She’s so close, and she hangs there, her entire body one long arch into Phil’s hand, onto Clint’s dick, until Phil tells her, “Go on, ‘Tasha,” and she moans, shaking apart in long waves that make Clint gasp along with her, gasp and shake and try so hard not to push up, not to apply further friction because good God if he does, if he does, Phil’s gonna be disappointed. Or maybe she will. He can’t remember, but coming right now? Bad decision. He remembers that much, as Phil’s hand shimmies and shakes, just above the joining of his body to Natasha’s.

“Good,” soothes Phil, praises Phil, as Natasha gasps huge lungsful of air. “Knew you missed him, knew you missed how good he is for you, ain’t he so good, ‘Tasha?”

“You-” mumbles Natasha, and Clint loves that about her, how a good orgasm can befuddle her just for an instant, just for a second put her down on his playing field. “Da, da, you- yes, Phil. So good, мой ястреб.” She gives him a sloppy kiss, with so much heart he would never mention the lack of skill to her, and slides off of him, making him groan and grunt at the friction it creates.

“Yes,” agrees Phil. “So good for you. And now, now he’s going to be good for me, aren’t you, sweet Hawk?”

Clint can’t even yelp, because Phil’s hands don’t shift him quickly, taking him by surprise, they move him methodically, implacably, taking care not to bend him in any of the ways that they know, by now, that’ll spike his pain and pull him out of this place, where he’s too hard and covered in Natasha’s wetness. Too hard, and covered in Natasha, and Phil just shifts him, moves him, until his ass is up and there are pillows supporting his weight for him, beside Natasha on the bed.

There’d been a night, once, at the very beginning, when Phil had gotten very angry at Natasha, angry enough to pull out of her and stalk from the bed. She’d popped her head up, immediately, and demanded, “What... _what_?” And Phil had said, “Stop faking. I know, I’ll always know. Either you’re here, with us, or we’re not doing this.”

It was the first time, in all their long years together, that he’d ever seen Natasha’s lips quiver with real hurt, real frustration. He’d asked Phil, how did the man know? And Phil had laughed and said, “Tasha goes completely brainless when it’s real. Not for long, but that’s how I knew.”

Phil had paused and said, as casually destructive as he ever is, “And I know with you it’s real when you stop begging for it with words and start _whining_.”

Phil puts Clint exactly where he wants him, shifting Clint’s hips just a little, adjusting the pillows, and then he dips his fingers into Natasha, making her let out a noise like a very quiet yelp of protest, that turns into a purr as he strokes her and collects the wetness from her walls. Clint shifts on the pillows, because he knows what that means, and he’s not disappointed when Phil’s first finger slides, slippery with Natasha, around his hole and presses in with a pop.

“Tightened up on us,” comments Phil with interest, and Natasha hums disapproval like he’s giving the weather report for a rainy day. Clint groans, flushing because he can’t help it as Phil cocks an eyebrow at him and lets him shift as much as his ribs will allow, seeking more, seeking movement, from the finger. “Still eager,” Phil says quietly. 

“Still your boy,” agrees Natasha. “No matter how old, no matter who has him, still yours, Phil.”

“Yes,” agrees Phil, jabbing in with another finger. “Still mine, yes, Clint?”

Clint has long lost the ability to form words, so he hisses and nods, the burn of the stretch feeling fantastic. “Another?” asks Phil, like he’s asking if he should add a fucking cube of sugar to Clint’s tea, and Clint thrusts, just a bit, in protest of that voice, that fucking voice.

“Mm,” Phil hums, his other hand slipping down and requesting politely, “May I?”

Natasha laughs, splaying her legs and lifting her hips just a little, kissing Clint’s bicep when the image makes him grunt and then moan. Phil dips his fingers in and draws them out, slick with her wetness, and presses that into Clint, too, with another finger, a third fucking finger, barely wet, barely-

“The oil,” says Natasha, with regret. “Phil, you, he is still-”

“Doc’ll yell at me, she’s saying,” Phil tells Clint, his voice only slightly gruff. “And that’s the only reason, you hear me? I’d take you rough, the way I want you, with only her wetness to ease the way, but the Doc’ll take me to task in an hour when you’re still crying, won’t he, Hawk? Won’t you cry about it?”

Clint can feel the tears of shame already, and shakes his head, trying to show that no, no, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t cry about, God, he needs it, please, Phil, please.

Phil chuckles and says, “Oil, Devilwoman,” and Natasha scrambles for the drawer in the beside table. Clint would sigh a little relief but Phil’s fingers are scissoring, the wetness from Natasha nowhere near enough to make it a comfortable sensation. “You gonna cry, Hawk?” asks Phil, curious, as Clint gasps and pushes back, aching for the touch to deepen, to press- to press there, where it feels so fucking good. He’s certain if he just, if he just moved a little, he could get Phil’s fingers to slip, slip a little, they’re so close, so close. Phil chuckles a little and tells Natasha in an aside, “You see him? Trying to impress me like that? Clint, Clint,” and Clint can feel the exact moment when Natasha pours the oil on Phil’s hands, “You’re going to have to work harder than that.” His fingers twist, then, making Clint bite down hard on his own forearm to prevent the scream from gaining air, muffling it, turning it into a moan and then, as the fingers continue, a whine, a high-pitched keening sound.

“Ahh,” purrs Natasha. 

“Yes,” says Phil, in a voice full of satisfaction. “There he is. Eyes, Hawk,” he demands.

Clint opens his eyes with a snap, not entirely sure when he’d closed them, and they’re both there, looking down at him, the same smug smirk on their faces as they turn to each other and kiss, Phil’s fingers shifting in and out of Clint, stretching him. Phil releases Natasha with obvious reluctance and kneels up, closer to Clint, shifting Clint’s legs where he needs them to be and saying, “Work, work, work. He always needs this reminder at the most inconvenient times.”

“Inconvenient,” agrees Natasha, her eyes flashing to Clint’s face.

“You. Are. Ours,” Phil tells Clint, and he nods, frantically, so ready, so ready for anything, please Phil, please, don’t- don’t stop- “Natasha’s had her fun, Clint Barton, and you did so well, and now, now I’m going to to have mine, Hawk, and you’re going to do well for me, too, aren’t you?”

Clint can feel the shame, the twisted shame inside him that knows this ain’t right, this ain’t how any of this is supposed to go. It’s not supposed to make him harder, to be used like this, to be- to be her living dildo and his- his whatever, whatever he is to Phil, this place where Phil sticks his dick and _rubs_. That’s not supposed to make him run hotter and want it more, he knows that, he can feel how twisted it is, how it’s not right, but it’s also the only- God, the only thing he wants right now. He nods, frantically, his face lighting up with shame and eagerness, and Phil chuckles as he slides in, obviously oiled up by Natasha by the way she presses oily fingers salty with Phil’s precum into Clint’s mouth for him to suck, to clean them. Phil pulls back, and shoves back in, and then pulls back and slams in, and Clint yelps. Phil makes an inquiring noise in response and Clint _whines_. 

Natasha and Phil are both chuckling as Phil begins to set a brutal pace, his hands gripping Clint’s hips so tightly there’ll be new bruises, Clint’s sure of it.

“Whining for it, I told you,” Phil tells him, and then, because God isn’t fair and he’s given all of Clint’s ability to make words to Phil, and Phil loves to use the extra supply to drive Clint absolutely out of his mind while he’s rutting into him, “Told you so many times, that’s how I know you need it, you want it. You go so stupid brainless, Hawk, so needy, always ready to let a fella take whatever he wants. Seen you on your knees for Tony in _alleys_ , letting him call you Pretty Blue, like you’re always aching for this, some part of you, wanting it.”

Clint can’t argue that, because so far, whenever Phil’s pushed into him, he’s been whining for it, begging for it with body and voice. Natasha slides a hand up Clint’s chest to grip his chin, tilt his head back, and begins whispering in Russian, translating Phil’s words up into Russian words, spinning what’s left of Clint’s rational brain for a loop.

“Always want to impress me, don’t you?” asks Phil, on a long push in, trying to bury himself deep into Clint’s stomach, Clint’s sure of it. “Well, okay then, Hawk. Impress me.”

Clint is gasping, as Natasha begins repeating other things that Phil has said to him, while buried deep inside, filthy things, things about how he’d sell Clint just to see how many men Clint could take in a night, have ‘em line up and shove in until Clint’s sloppy and still whining for more, probably. Things about how he should ask the Doc to drop in, bring his tools, make Clint beg no and mean it, for once, Phil’s tired of Clint lying when his ass is so eager, always so damn eager. Natasha’s words, and her grip on his chin, are making tears spring to Clint’s eyes because they don’t stop anything, they don’t even slow anything down, he’s still struggling to grind down on Phil, to impress Phil, he still wants Phil to- to- to keep going, to call him boy, to tell Clint he- 

“Fuck,” swears Phil, “Eyes, Hawk.”

Clint’s eyes fly open and the look Phil is giving him makes him gasp, his cock leaking precum. It’s so intense, so unlike his unflappable everyday self, and Phil only give it to him in moments like these, second before he wrecks himself. “Natasha,” Phil grunts. “Time it.”

Natasha’s dark chuckle adds to the noises that fill the room- Clint’s low whine as Phil slides out and his shocked gasp, every time, as Phil slams back in, Phil’s grunts, his low groan as he bottoms out. Her hands wrap around Clint’s length, making him thrust up, only to press back, back, as Phil slides in smoothly, rubbing twirling sparks up into Clint’s dick. She’s careful, careful to time the glide of her hand to the thrust of Phil’s dick, adding pressure only when Phil falters, when Phil’s rhythm stutters and he begins chasing his release. Clint doesn’t care about timing, about when he comes, he only cares that Phil told Natasha to take care of it, and Natasha _is_. He’s one raw exposed nerve, thrusting up in to her hands as Phil thrusts into him, his eyes open only because Phil wants to be impressed and Clint can’t think of anything more impressive than keeping his fucking eyes open with all of this sensation bombarding him. 

Phil’s gaze goes distracted, his jaw a little slack, and then he bends his head, grunting deeply, his hip stuttering to a halt. Natasha swears and her fingers slip over the head of Clint’s cock and he groans full-throated as he, too, reaches release, spurting hot ivory splatters all over her hands.

After shuddering for a minute, catching their breaths, Phil gasps, “Almost thought you’d botched the timing, woman.”

“Never,” she assures him smugly. 

“Impressed?” gasps Clint.

“Oh yeah,” Phil assures him, slipping himself out and sliding forward, kissing Clint greedily on the mouth around the gasps he, too, is doing, trying to catch enough air in his lungs for more words. It makes Clint feel less self-conscious of his own panting, to realize Phil’s not much better off than him, and doesn’t have a busted rib besides.

“Pretty Blue,” teases Natasha, and they both snort into the kiss. Phil pulls back and tells Clint, “You are pretty, though. I can see why he calls you that.”

Clint rolls his eyes and Phil laughs, “Wiseguy. How’s the ribs?”

“Well, they didn’t break free and impale me,” Clint tells him, wincing.

“No, that was-” begins Natasha, her eyes warm with mirth.

“Me,” agrees Phil blandly, quirking an eyebrow at Clint. Clint rolls his eyes again and kisses the man. 

“Ribs, Clint?” demands Phil after a moment.

“Aching, boss,” Clint informs him shortly, because when Phil uses that tone, he wants an actual answer. “But no worse than yesterday.”

“It’ll do,” concedes Phil. Natasha nods, and then sighs, “It is so good to be on the mend.”

Clint looks up at Phil and nods his agreement, rubbing their noses together until Phil snaps his head down for another determined kiss. He breaks it after several long, languorous passes to say, “Glad I cleared it with Fury to play nursemaid for another few days. Real good return on investment.”

Clint’s not great with words, but he’s pretty good at math. “Sure is, boss,” he tells Phil. “Although if one of you don’t get these damn pillows out from under me, I really will slip a rib try to find a spot for a post-coital nap, here.”

“Who says we’re napping?” asks Phil brightly. “I’m hungry. I bet they have a tray next door and it’s almost time for the morning tills to start flowing in.”

Clint and Natasha both groan, Natasha shoving pillows from under Clint brutally, ignoring the way he hisses at her to be careful. “You go,” she says firmly. “We stay.”

“Works for me,” laughs Phil easily, rising, pushing himself off of the bed and stretching. Clint eyes him in familiar appraisal as Natasha swipes at his abdomen with some kind of cloth- oh, the knickers that go with the outfit she’s still wearing. “You are sticky,” she announces. “This bed is wrecked. We will sleep, and then we will get up, and get it changed.”

Phil nods approval of this plan and gathers his clothes as he walks to the bathroom, rubbing at his face. “I wonder if I can get the Sarge to give me one of his close shaves this afternoon?” he muses. “New barber just ain’t getting it close enough.”  
  
Natasha looks at Clint, and their eyes widen with laughter, because Phil doesn’t know, he doesn’t, there’s no way he knows about Bucky and Peter.   
  
“You should ask him to take you when he does Peter,” Natasha suggests, because she’s better at hiding things with her voice. Clint nods frantically, shifting in the pillows and the blankets of the bed to pull her down close to him, muffle his laughter in her shoulder. 

“Oh, does he shave Peter, too? I thought maybe the kid didn’t have any fuzz yet,” comments Phil blandly, juggling the clothes he’s collected over one arm as he tries to push open the bathroom door.

“Enthusiastically,” Natasha states firmly. “You should ask.”

“I will,” Phil calls, closing the door behind him. 

Natasha looks at Clint, raising one eyebrow, and Clint looks back for a long solemn moment before they both burst into laughter.

“Nap,” she declares. “Then, then we lay low and see… see what happens.”

It’s a good plan for a sharpshooter and an assassin, Clint acknowledges. A perfectly good plan.

She snuggles up to him, placing another kiss on his lips and saying, “You are perfect for me, Clint Barton.”  
  
Well. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not, but it’s nice to hear. He follows her, as with everything, back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might add another thought here, some more smut, but I might also just do it as another story. If you like this Clint and want to read more of him, you might want to subscribe to this story so you'll be notified if I do decide to add a chapter?

**Author's Note:**

> There it is. Yup.
> 
> Song in the title (with lyrics that are ON POINT for once, lol): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpygRv9hw8I
> 
> Hey! I hit a half-million words posted to AO3 with this story! Go me! Thanks for reading!


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